More Windy Willows Love Letters
by katherine-with-a-k
Summary: Anne and Gilbert have just spent their first Summer together and are about to part for another year. What did they get up to during those two months, what happened on that "one weekend in May", and what else will they discover? Here's another set of letters that go beyond those dot dot dots...
1. Hither and Thither

**Hello Anne-fans,**

 **For those new to the story this is my attempt to imagine what Anne wrote beyond those dot dot dots in her letters to Gilbert -and what his replies might be. I'm using Anne of Windy Willows (also known as Anne of Windy Poplars) and my previous stories, The Windy Willows Love Letters and Redmond Diaries, as source material. Please give them a read, too!**

 **Dedicated to PelirrojaBiu & DianaStorm09, Alinya & FKAJ. With love and gratitude to L.M.M. ~ Everything is hers, only this idea is mine**

 **...**

 **MORE WINDY WILLOWS LOVE LETTERS**

 ** _"The public and the publisher won't allow me to write of a girl how she really is... you have to depict this sweet, inspired young thing -really a child grown older- to whom the basic realities of life and reactions to them are quite unknown. LOVE must scarcely be hinted at -yet- girls often have some very livid love affairs." L.M. Montgomery, 1924_**

 ** _"Because when you are imagining you may as well imagine something worth while." Anne Shirley_**

 **I**

 **...**

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane_**

 ** _September 14th, 1888  
_**

 _Hello Gilbert Blythe,_

 _I can hardly reconcile myself to the fact that our beautiful two months are over. They were beautiful, weren't they, dearest? And now it will only be two years before we never need say goodbye to each other again. For~ _

_'Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge...'_

 _Just not at Ambleside. Diana wrote to tell me it was sold last Tuesday to some second cousins of the Sloanes. More Sloanes ~as if Avonlea was in need of more!_

 _A thousand pardons, Serene Sir, for the sour grapes that have just spilled across this page. I always knew, Gil (truly I did) there was no real way we could have bought that darling house. But wasn't it nice to dream? There was something so right about it ~the name for one. It had a mossy stepping stone path you couldn't help but amble toward; with slender sister birches shading your way, and a glossy red door beckoning all-comers to the vine smothered porch. We pressed our noses against the window and peeped into the empty house... and I could see our table settled next to the fireplace, our geraniums jostling along the sill, our marmalade cat curled up on a chair... Then all of a sudden I saw YOU on the other side of the glass waving at me._

 _Trust a Blythe to discover a way inside!_

 _I knew we had no right to trespass but I hardly needed convincing. Nor do I regret my wicked ways. It was such a delicious moment, fused with a rare pairing of practicality and danger. We tiptoed round each room picturing where we would place our furniture. Shushing each other and snickering as we crept up the stairs like thieves, until all semblance of discretion was abandoned as we fell into debate about which bedroom we preferred._

 _I was (still am) taken with east room facing the lane, with its intricate stained glass window of roses and irises. How the morning would have painted sapphire and ruby light over the walls, the way clear glass lozenges strew tiny rainbows in hidden places. I think I waxed lyrical about that image for quite some time because the next thing I knew you grasped my hand and lead me to the bedroom at the back of the house which looked out onto the garden. Then you lay down on the linseed scented floor and said to me~_

 _"Coloured glass is all very well... but imagine waking up to that every morning."_

 _I lay down next to you expecting to see a view of unsurpassed beauty; looking up expectantly at a white plastered ceiling, then at the juniper bush that loomed by the dormer window, then at your grinning face... Which is when I realised you meant waking up next to ME!_

 _"Good morning, Mrs Blythe," you said, positioning your nicely rounded bicep under my neck._

 _"Good morning Mr Blythe- er, Dr Blythe- ah, Gilbert are you a doctor in this particular dream?"_

 _"That depends," you answered, "are those drapes at the window made of muslin or velvet?"_

 _I peered over at the bare window and furnished them over and over in the space it took you to weave your fingers with mine._

 _"Velvet," I said, decidedly. "In a soft gold that puddles on the floor."_

 _"Then I'm definitely a doctor."_

 _You began to laugh and I thought I would too, but instead I felt serious._

 _"Tell me true, Gil, are you becoming a doctor so that you can buy me velvet drapes and stained glass windows?"_

 _"That depends, too," you said. "Some days I feel I'm building this bridge of knowledge in my head and I enjoy its construction so much I never want to get to the other side. I'm not really thinking of you at the moment ~nor me~ but something bigger, something greater than us. Then there are times when I'm dissecting a mouse brain or writing a paper at two in the morning or trying not to notice what The Fox and Miss Swales are getting up to, when I have to remind myself exactly why I chose the path I'm on. And it's not the noble idea of service and discovery that spurs me on. It's you. You in that House of Dreams you write about. The idea of a home and the promise of you, I feel like I can't have one without the other... A house with 'endless rooms to love you endlessly...' "  
_

 _Then my lovely muscle pillow was rudely removed and you hauled me up. Not in order to see if Ambleside was actually blessed with endless rooms, or even because the thrill of being alone in an empty house no longer equalled the trouble we would get into if we were discovered. But because you never seemed able to sit with me for more than ten minutes together before my hand would be grabbed and I would be led to some fresh destination._

 _The summer we shared... I really have learned what it is to be Gilbert Blythe's girl. Ever pulling me hither and thither. Ever looking back at me with the words, 'Not much further, just through this hedge, over this rock face, into this copse'. You made Avonlea NEW to me, Gil. I know I'm only some upstart Bluenose but I would have said I knew all there was to know about the dear old place. Then you offered it up to me like treasure, so that I feel I have returned to Summerside arrayed with such riches. Our golden days hanging from my limbs like baubles on a Christmas tree. Sometimes knocking me about, sometimes ringing through me sweetly, and I have no choice but to stop what I'm doing and hold each memory up to the light. And I remember, Gilbert..._

 _I remember everything we did together._

 _When I returned for the new term I never wanted to the train to reach its destination; only wanted to sit there with my head against the cool pane, running over each moment with you as the wheels ran over the tracks. Each memory coming to me like another station on the line. But instead of coal smoke in my mouth I tasted the cool red dust of the Mi'kmaq grounds, instead of hot tar I smelled the salt of the estuaries, instead of the click of the track I could feel the satisfying crunch of crabs and shells breaking under my boots. That scorching day in June when we came back with sunburned noses and Rachel demanded to know where we'd been for four hours together! Though I think the string of fish you offered her made up for it somewhat._

 _"Gutted and scaled to boot!" she said, in impressed tones. Clearly calculating that the distance we had travelled, and the time it would have taken us to catch and clean them meant there would have been little time left for canoodling._

 _"Now whenever we need an alibi," I said to you later, "we need only pay a visit to the fishmonger."_

 _"Fishmonger? Not in this lifetime!" you cried. "If we do nothing else this summer, Anne, I hope to show you the location of every decent fishing hole this side of Charlottetown."_

 _"I realise you will be privileging me with some extremely precious information~" I began._

 _"There's a fair chance the Bell boys will never talk to me again. I had to do a full initiation before I was allowed to know the best location for eels."_

 _(Which if memory serves included a naked dive into a waterhole choked with duck weed.)_

 _I wanted to tell you really needn't betray the secrets of your fishing cronies on my account, Gil. That I was more than satisfied with a long, hot picnic or a rambling stroll or an evening under the Virgin's unseeing eye. But I knew what you were really doing was showing me your secret world, offering it to me as you though you offered yourself. The split pine, the echo wall, the end of the world cliff, the cave._

 _Dearest love, I know the reason why you would never sit in one place with me for more than ten minutes together. It's because of the cave, isn't it? What happened in the cave... or didn't happen... or nearly happened... Oh, I want to scrub this out and start over except I know whatever letter I write I will be always be thinking about not thinking about that dusty red cavern cut into the White Sands western shore. Because whenever I think of tiptoeing through empty houses with you, or sitting by your side with a line in my hand and the smell of the sea in my nose, I am really only thinking of one thing. The one thing we said we wouldn't talk about. But did we say we wouldn't write about it?_

 _Well, I won't, not yet. Because right now I am more than satisfied to lie back and think about it. Remember... imagine... dream... in the solitude of my room. It strikes me as ridiculous that I am almost content to be away from you because it gives me the blissful opportunity of dreaming about you instead._

 _Yes, I miss you, most beloved boy ~horribly, painfully, utterly. But then again there has been a great deal of pleasure in returning to Windy Willows... to my own private tower... and my own special chair... and my own lofty bed..._

 _ **…**_

 _ **September 18th, 1888**_

 _ **Harvey House, Redmond**_

 _ **K'port**_

 _My ever optimistic Anne-girl,_

 _Trust YOU to see our separation in such light. I thought The Fox's company might offer some distraction but now I see the benefits of having a room to myself -all the better to summon you into it. It occurs to me that I should probably tell you I am not in the same room I was in last term. It's only quaking first years who are banished to the top floor of Harvey House, while the second and third years are free to haunt the remainder of the building._

 _I say 'haunt' because we've been told not to expect more than a few hours sleep between classes, labs and rounds this year. I definitely recall seeing many a fellow sprawled out on a trolley and curled up outside the lecture halls vying for a few minutes sleep. I suppose I should feel daunted by what lies ahead this year, but I don't. I am excited to see how far I can push myself. I feel as though first year was merely a practice run and now the serious work begins. And I'm hungry for it, Anne, never had such an appetite._

 _I confess I didn't spend much time recollecting our summer on the journey here. Most of my time was taken up reading over the papers Professor Reid sent me, including one by a Philadelphian surgeon named Macy who has perfected a surgical technique to cure hernias. Apparently it's all down to the depth and length of the stitches. I couldn't help thinking that if Mam or Mrs Lynde had been encouraged to become surgeons they would probably have hit on this discovery years sooner. But imagine what it will mean, Anne. Every harvest some poor farmhand is bent double with a hernia, never to lift more than a pound of potatoes over his shoulder again. Now this affliction is a thing of the past. It's nothing less than a marvel. And yours truly is now part of this marvellous world. Up to my neck -just the way I like it._

 _Our summer, Anne. Firstly, do you know it still astounds me to write 'our' anything, let alone an entire summer. The time we spent together feels precious to me too, but unlike you I almost always stop myself remembering those moments. I expect this will sound superstitious but I can't help thinking that if I dwell in dreams too long I'll use them up or wear them out. Something always tell me to stop. I think that's half the reason I was always wanting to show you something secret or take you somewhere new, because I wanted to make as many memories with you as I could before the two of us parted again._

 _That's another word I can't get enough of. US. Us at the echo wall hollering, 'Anne Shirley loves Gilbert Blythe!' 'Gilbert Blythe loves Anne Shirley!' until our voices went hoarse. Us on Mi'kmak land, standing barefoot on sun warmed rocks and trying to ignore how hungry we were by eating the wind. Us racing up the split pine trunk to see who could get to the canopy first. Us paddling out in Davy's cedar canoe -and then quickly paddling back when we realised we were in for a repeat of your_ _Elaine escapade._

 _Growing up without brothers and sisters I never had someone to share my secrets with, nor did I especially miss it. But sharing those places with you, seeing it through your eyes, I suddenly saw the benefit of any extra pair of hands -or an extra-ordinary imagination. Who were the people that once lived on that sacred ground and where are they now? Which storm was the one that split that tree in two? How did the same species of speckled trout come to live in a small pond ten miles away? The way you wonder over things I'd never thought of before. Avonlea became new to me too, every hour I was able to be with you._

 _What amazed me most weren't the rare places we explored but the ordinary things. Attending parties with you, walking into church with you, the way you always saved a place for me at a gathering. The way we danced together. No longer was I restricted to one or two sedate waltzes before I had to give way to some other fellow. Now I was wheeling you round the room or the lawn for hours at a time._

 _You must know I am thinking of the night when Emil Sadler played The Wind that Shakes the Barley in doubletime. How we spun and leaped under those gaudy paper lanterns. Everyone else shifted away and there was just you and me and that fiddle goading us on until sweat beaded our brows and your hair stuck to your cheeks. You were so shining eyed and beautiful, skipping and jumping in time with me. I thought my lungs would burst yet never once thought of stopping, even when I realised that everyone one else had. It was as if all Avonlea stood there staring at us, some were even clapping. Then the song was done and I felt how damp your dress was under my hands, the way my shirt was stuck to my back, and we stood there face to face with our chests heaving, unable to say a word. Ever since I've wanted to know what you were thinking in that instant, and decided then and there I would ask you in a letter -because we never made promises not to talk about that._

 _About our afternoon in the cavern, I suppose there's no harm in us writing about it. Though I don't know what you expect I might say. It was all so obvious, on my part at least. I am still going red weeks later remembering just how obvious I was. Though I admit there is another something I would very much like to ask of you. (I believe I'm going even redder now.)_

 _Later..._

 _I stand corrected. I no longer believe that remembering our summer will wear those memories out. If anything they seem even more alive. I almost wish I hadn't discovered this, The Fox is due back any moment and then I will have to lay those thoughts of you -of US- out of reach once more. So with your permission, Miss Shirley, I'll conclude this letter now, open my window, and summon your sweet self to my side while I may._

 _Gil_

 _P.S. That kiss you sent me just arrived._

 ** _..._**

 *** opening sentence to 'before' and closing sentence of Anne's letter to Gilbert, from chapter 18, Anne of Windy Willows**

 *** 'whither thou goest...' from the Book of Ruth 1:16**

 *** 'endless rooms to love you endlessly' from chapter 2, The Windy Willows Love Letters**

 *** the Mi'kmak people are indigenous to Prince Edward Island**

 *** reference to the Virgin first mentioned in chapter 14, Redmond Diaries -the second year**

 **So, how was that? I did say I would venture into T territory with this story. You have been warned :o)**


	2. Dreams and Realism

**Hello again. Thank you so much for your response to this new story, it was gorgeous to hear from readers past as well as new. I love knowing what you are anticipating and what you are unsure of. When I write I write for you.**

 **...**

 _ **Windy Willows**_

 _ **Spook's Lane**_

 _ **S'side**_

 _ **September 20th**_

 _Ah, my mesmeric Mannie,_

 _What you do to me! It is as well we are studying the Stoics this term for this Principal has much to learn from the maxim~_

 _'True education is learning to wish things to be as they actually are.'_

 _I happened to offer that piece of wisdom to Myra Pringle yesterday. She was lamenting how words disobey their own rules and declared henceforth she would spell sufficient suffic eint, and dared me argue otherwise. Now you know that I can never resist a dare ~nor a debate. My initial retort was brimful of 'etymological roots' and the 'under-differentiation of diaphonemes' which I suspect the little dear thought I had made up. In the end I struck upon the most Anne-ish answer I could think of, which was instead of wishing it wasn't so, why not wish that it was?_

 _It was only said in exasperation. This morning I was up before the sun emerged from the crest of the Storm King, in order to brush up on my Epictetus. I never intended to pass off 1st century philosophy as my own. But something clearly resonated because this afternoon Miss Myra managed to write two full paragraphs without one spelling error._

 _If only I could apply the same rule to myself. Because I don't want to wish things as they are. Try as I might I cannot escape the feeling that I should be by your side. Nuzzling your ear while you attempt to take notes on some worthy article, then watching you write the same word over and over..._

 _I hope you are blushing as fiercely now as you were when you wrote to me. I also wonder what I am to make of the questions you didn't ask so much as asked if you might ask them. Writing that you promised yourself you would ask me what I thought at a particular moment is not the same as asking, Gilbert Blythe. But let me put you out of your misery (or exacerbate it) and answer you anyway. It would be cruel to make you wait for my reply only to find I had written nothing more than 'Permission granted.'_

 _I am not at my desk anymore, Gil, but in my loftiest, loveliest bed. Not only because it's far and away the best place to write love letters (dappled groves excepted), but because my room is cold. I forgot to tend to the fire in my tiny stove and snuffed it out with a too large log. Apple logs too. They always remind me Patty's Place. Promise me, darling, you'll visit Phil soon. She writes that lately she has begun to totter around Patterson St the way a spinning top does when it's about to stop spinning. Now I can imagine lots of things but I cannot imagine that! I suspect Mrs Blake makes confinement look as effortless and stylish as everything else she puts her mind to. I am spilling over with curiosity about the little one she and Jo have made. And Diana's. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Wrights new baby should arrive at Christmas? It feels right, don't you think, to be snuggled up under a blanket of snow and starlight with your newborn child? Or as Diana put it, 'If you're going to be stuck inside you may as well spend it with a babe at your breast.'_

 _Do they lecture on that at Medical school, about nursing babies? When I look over the timetable you wrote out for me I notice you have Obstetrics on Mondays and Thursdays and something called Gynae. on Wednesdays. In fact that class features rather a lot (though that may be due to the fact that I was kissing your nape at the time you were writing it.)_

 _I long to kiss you there now. I run my lips over this page and think of your crisp, white collar... how the clipped hair at your neck stood up... the way a shiver went through your shoulders and my name left your mouth in a soft, hot breath.  
_

 _I remember writing in one of my letters that I was afraid be near you, afraid I might catch fire the moment our fingers touched. And now... Now it's as though you are always touching me. The way these sheets brush over my legs. The way my brush runs through my hair. Even the air itself. The world is so full of you, Gilbert Blythe._

 _And I am BURSTING open._

 ** _September 21st  
_**

 _I haven't read over the ramble I wrote last night. But considering the way my writing went awry I can hazard a guess that I did, too. Instead of a neat, upstanding copperplate my hand took on the style I have come to think of as 'copper bath'. The things I wrote while I bathed! Still do!_

 _I am imagining you saying in Blythest fashion, 'Miss Shirley, you do surprise me.' And now I am thinking of you saying, 'This is all very well, but I have a three hour lab to get to and you still haven't answered my question.'_

 _What was I thinking the night we danced to the Wind that Shakes the Barley? I assume you were referring to our Engagement Party, when we danced a figure eight shaped ditch into the Fletcher's lawn, and I woke the next morning feeling deliciously stiff and sore, so that every time I moved I was certain my whole self was being prized open, and when I went to Blairs the next afternoon Thomasina Blair shifted herself from haberdasher counter for the first time in ten years in order to prevent her son from serving such a hussy? Was that the dance you meant?_

 _I confess I wasn't thinking anything at all. But please don't feel disappointed, Gil, it is the truest answer I can give. There were no thoughts, no words, during those moments in your arms. Only supreme feelings. I don't think there's another way to describe it except, ALIVENESS. So wonderfully, fully alive with you.  
_

 _Oh! It's already gone two and I promised Lewis I would meet him by the tram stop at two thirty. We are canvassing Dawlish Road this afternoon for the Dramatic Society, and here's me lolloping about in such a smouldering, curling smoke sort of mood. Can you imagine how tiresome it is to get a wisp of smoke into button up boots and my winter-weight coat? I wish I could keep writing to you. Alas time it is against me. Yet 'What have I to do with time?' For this is the sort of day where people feel alive... where every wind of the world is a sister..._

 _With deepest, whimsical love from one who is not a sister._

 _Your devoted A.S._

 _ **September 22nd**_

 _It's Sunday and as Rachel would probably consider walking to the postbox and dropping an envelope into it tantamount to work (if not Rachel than certainly Rebecca Dew) I thought I would while away the hours between now and Monday morning by continuing this letter. Needless to say I have read over it now. Though what I should have done is read over yours so that I can give you a coherent reply which responds neatly to each of your paragraphs, point for point. The problem with that, however, the problem, Gilbert, is that each time I come to the end, to the place where you are lying on your bed and feeling my kisses light upon you, I become incoherent all over again._

 _I realise this is scandalously unfair so I have made myself the bitterest, blackest brew and removed the blue doughnut cushion from my desk chair, and mean to be properly proper for at least an entire page._

 _Oh, I can't do it. It wasn't my fault. I merely stretched my back for a moment and caught sight of you grinning at me from the photograph taken of us on the night of the Fletcher's party. Your tie is askew and there's one curl standing up like a pigs tail. And then there's me, head tilted toward your chest, left hand on my shoulder so that my pearls could be seen. (Though I only agreed to Diana's direction because I was desperate to conceal the damp circles under my arms of my dress.)_

 _That's what I remember now, the smell of you! How thrilling it was to be near you when you smelled so fresh and wild. Is it strange to find that thrilling? Improper? Unbecoming? Perhaps another man (one immediately springs to mind) would find such an admission unnatural, when it is by rights the most natural thing in the world. We spend most of our days on this earth bound by propriety, might we not loosen a button or forgo the lavender water once in a while?_

 _So let us pretend that I have inquired after your folks, offered some intelligent questions about hernias, and some gossipy ones about Mr Rasmussen and Miss Swales; asked the names of your cohort and whether you plan to grow a beard this year. And I'll tell you about the subscriptions we garnered yesterday, about the curious little fellow we encountered on Dawlish Road, and the passage in Meditations I am having trouble translating. Then I shall loosen a button, better yet I shall replace the nib of my pen with a likelier sort, and speak of the things I truly want to say._

 _The memory of our afternoon in the White Sands cavern beats inside me as surely as my own heart. I was already thinking about it when you drove me home that evening... When you softly kissed me at the gate... All through the night ~and every night after. I don't think I have had a satisfying sleep since June. You could say to me, Anne, how is it possible for you to think so much about such a small moment? And I would answer that it's in its smallness where the power dwells. Like a seed, all I can see are infinite potentials and they're all living and growing inside me. You see why I say I am BURSTING?_

 _Now I am blushing, not only because of the dreams I have conjured but for what I am about to propose. I would like to, if it wouldn't offend you, I would like to tell you ~in letters~ the sorts of imaginings that moment has inspired in me. I've never asked this of anyone before; I only ever built my worlds for one. But I believe I am ready to share this with you, dearest love, if you believe it's somewhere you would like to go with me._

 _Leave your window open tonight (but before you do be so kind as to look over the line of Latin I've enclosed.)  
_

 _Your very ANNE-EST Anne  
_

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond, K'port_**

 ** _October 1st  
_**

 _Dearest, rarest love,_

 _I'm sorry this letter has taken so long. Truth is I have been writing it in my head from the moment I read the last word you wrote. Because, miraculous girl that you are, what you asked of me is what what I so badly wanted to ask of you. I became so addled headed I punctured a pig's intestine (which had the unexpected benefit of ending the class two hours early) and I ran back to my room and spent fifteen minutes mopping up the ink I spilled all over my desk, and then the rest of the night composing the perfect reply. Yet as soon as I finished it I knew it wasn't what I wanted to say. I was mindful of that letter I sent you last winter and how much I regretted it. I don't know how to express the inexpressible the way you can. But you're the only woman I've met who makes me want to try._

 _I decided (don't laugh) to try running my lips over these pages the way you kissed my own, as though somehow I might show you what I feel for you; the way I miss you; all the dreams that I have. Which reminds me, the way I read the Meditations passage it translates as:_

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running through them.

 _Perhaps I should have written you something in Latin instead of kissing stationery, but after taking a papercut to the underside of my nose I wrote out a neat account of life at Redmond so far. How I've been invited to join the Student Medical Society; that The Fox and I are competing to see who can grow his beard the fastest (I am now picturing you laughing because you know the paltry amount of whiskers I have. Hardly anything grows on my jaw at all -I'm going to end up with flaming sideburns and sad little wisps on my chin like Abe Morris); that I have a total of 59 hours of work to get through each week, including 15 hours at Imperial hospital; that Dorelia Swales is no longer a secret guest of the Fox & Coop; that Charlie Sloane is in love with his Ambleside cousin -and that her name is Joane (note the e); that Phil Blake makes an incandescent Madonna; and other less newsy items: Bed still narrow, puddings still inedible, skin disease class fascinating, gynaecology dull... It was the kind of letter my folks would enjoy but I'm not sure I could say the same for the authoress, Anne Shirley._

 _Anne, why did you describe yourself as a 'one time' authoress? Was all that writing you did over summer a mere ruse, said only to conceal the fact you had been counting the hours until I came back from the fields and into your arms? You know if you don't like Lavender water you might just say, surely you prefer that to some sweaty farmhand? By the way, I want to thank you again for the little bag of rosemary you sent. Please know it's been pressed to my lips almost as many times as you have. But it's not enough, Anne-girl, not nearly._

 _I know you said you were BURSTING -of all the words in the world why did you go and select that one?- but I feel I've already burst. I walk our streets and look at the conkers under my feet, split open to reveal their gleaming hearts and I think, that's you Blythe. (It's obvious who I spent most of my summer with, I'm sympathising with horse chestnuts.) I wish I could divide myself in two, so that one of me could stay here and the other man could be with you. Instead I feel halved. As though what's good and devout in me has gone with you to Summerside and this empty ache is all that I have left. Then your letters arrive and they fill me so completely and I love you so much, Anne, I love you._

 _Please write me soon as you can and take me into your dreams. You've dwelt too long in my own. I want to know your world, too.  
_

 _Gilbert_

 _ **...**  
_

 *** Copper bath joke refers to chapter 6, Redmond Diaries- the fourth year**

 *** 'What have I to do with time' is from a poem by Emerson, that and the line about the 'sister wind' are in reference to chapter 19, Anne of Windy Willows**

 *** 'the letter I sent you last year...' refers to chapter 8, The Windy Willows Love Letters**

 *** 'dwell in beauty...' is reminding Gilbert of the starry dreams he had about Anne in chapter 8, Redmond Diaries -the second year**

 *** the Fox & Coop refers to the nicknames Gilbert and Ed have at Med School, first mentioned in chapter 2, The Windy Willows Love Letters**

 **If these two sound frenzied and muddled that's because they are, but please tell me if anything is unclear and I'll try to make it clearer. Ok, let's go into that cave...**


	3. Wet and Dry

**Hello again. Sorry not to have updated sooner, I am a U.S. election nerd and have spent way too many hours watching it when I should have been writing this story and replying to my messages. The following is rated T.**

 **...**

 _ **Windy Willows**_

 _ **Spook's Lane**_

 _ **October 5th**_

 _My beautiful man,_

 _I've had the loveliest evening. To wander through October woods is to float through a sunset, and I imagined you were there with me, your leather glove enclosing my mitten, the sleeve of your soft, worn coat brushing against my arm. I made believe we were talking about our day and I could feel you squeeze my hand as I mentioned my woes, and wrap your arm around me when I made you smile. Your thumb grazed over my shoulder when you laughed and a happiness went through me, so buttery and warm that the trees soaked it up like sunlight._

 _I want to know what it's like to kiss you under scarlet canopies. To have the smell of damp earth and fallen leaves mingle with the smell of you. I want to wrap my scarf around your neck and button up your coat. I want to slowly work the finger of each glove over your hands._

 _I want to be the one to peel them off again._

 _I want to unbutton your coat._

 _I want to unwind that soft green scarf._

 _To remove your jacket, your suspenders, your shirt._

 _I want to watch your eyes change from morning light to midnight as you wonder what I mean to do next._

 _I want to make you wonder. I want to make you wait._

 _I want to live in that moment when you wondered and waited._

 _I want to know you in Autumn the way I knew you this Summer._

 _ **…**_

 _I am hot and sleepy, my skin is flushed and damp. My hair is wet and tiny trickles of water, like a lover's finger, slip down my neck and my back. Tonight I stood before the mirror and let my towel drop to the floor and imagined what it would have been like if had been you who had discovered me. If I stood there the way you had, with your skin dripping and your body bare._

 _ **…**_

 _We were to meet up at three by the gelato cart on the old pier at White Sands. You were visiting the family you boarded with when you were teaching, I was due the following day with the Wrights. Diana and I were going to dine at Hayway's, moon over bolts of fabric at Harte and Co, and stroll along the boardwalk with our natty new parasols. Little Fred had other ideas however and instead of a smart day out she and I stalked over the auction houses with a poor bawling boy seeking out Fred so that he could drive them back to The Pines. I waved them off, half sorry, half glad, and went in search of the Roth place in hopes of finding you._

 _Those delightful people pulled me inside and pressed plate after plate of rugelach on me while they told me where I might find you. High up on the west coast, deep in the red cliffs was a cave. It had once been a hideout for smugglers. You used to take your pupils there on field trips, though the Roths had never seen it._

 _'Such an out of the way spot, so dangerous. One would have to clamber over boulders and rock falls in order to get to it. I would advise you to wait here, Miss Shirley,' Mrs Roth warned me, 'though... from what I know of you I don't expect you'll take my advice.'_

 _I smiled to myself for the entire two mile walk as I thought of you telling the Roths how you had engaged yourself to a woman who balances on ridge poles, clambers up bridge piles, and races you up trees. You might have impressed them with my B.A. or my books, or the fact I was a headmistress at a very respectable school. But you, Gil... you love the adventurer in me. How could I not go looking for you?_

 _It must have been close to two when I arrived. Mr Roth said I could come by the cave from above, there was a small set of steps cut into the cliff side where the trees grow sideways as they take the brunt of the wind. But I preferred to pass along the shore, picking my way over rocks, around pools, with my boots tied together and slung round my neck ~a trick I had learned from you._

 _The sun was high and warm on my back and the sea fell in gauzy rolls spilling their foam at my feet. A gull cried out to her mate and I realised I hadn't passed another person for ten minutes or more. I felt that deep satisfaction you often tell me about; when it seems as though the sun shines and the sea washes over your toes for you, and you alone. I remember shading my eyes and searching for a sign of you but instead I was confronted with a sheer face of rust coloured stone being worn away by the waves. I sized it up and thought to myself that perhaps I wasn't so great an adventurer after all. That perhaps Mr Roth was right, I should have come to the cave from the hillside instead of by the shore. At its narrowest point there was only four feet between the razor, red crags and the water's edge. I tried to recall when the tide was supposed to come in... and then the tide came in._

 _The one that dwells inside me._

 _On the other side of that rock face, footprints cut into wet white sand. They were those of a man, I was sure, spread wide and blurred as though running at some speed toward the cliff. It was you, I was certain it was you. Then I saw your cap wedged into a patch of sea-grass, and an apple core lying beside it. It was you... and oh, Gilbert, the thrill that went through me when I knew I had found you. As though I hadn't seen you for a month instead of only a day._

 _The climb itself was nothing, but I already told you that. My feet were bare and they found their footholds easily enough; my boots beat against my breast as I rose, your old grey cap rolled into my belt. It was the wind that tested me. It whipped my hair over my eyes and caused my skirts to snag, so that as I attempted to climb I would feel myself yanked backwards. I wasn't frightened, not really, only ever thinking what should I do that I am not doing? Or rather, what would Gilbert do?_

 _When I found the first likely ledge I paused for a moment. Slipping your cap over my head and tucking my hair under it, then taking the tail of my dress up between my legs and securing it into my belt like a pair of pantaloons. How much simpler it was to climb then. I was sure anyone passing below me would assume from the ease of my movements that I must be you._

 _At the mouth of the cave there were footprints in the red dust and more besides. A rough outline of your wet body. I could clearly see how you had lain back for a moment with your arms behind your head while your feet dangled over the edge. The cavern itself was shallower than I expected, though it appeared dark and deep at first. I stepped into it as carefully as I might enter into a river, while my eyes adjusted to the gloom._

 _You were bent over, drying your leg. 'Hold up,' you said._

 _You thought I was a boy coming to explore, and you turned your head and peered at me. The towel was dropped to the ground. And you did something so simple, so simple and easy its simplicity and ease took the breath from my chest. You straightened yourself and you stood there facing me, your hair dripping salt water over your shoulders and onto your chest. And the light from the mouth of the cave made each drop glisten as it fell down your body. And my eyes fell too, over every inch of you. And you stood there, Gil. You stood there with your shoulders squared and your legs just parted, I watched your toes curl and your lips open. I saw you, all of you. You let yourself be seen and you were beautiful, beautiful, beautiful in the dim depths of the Whites Sands cave._

 _ **…  
**_

 _It was only the matter of a moment, but now, Gilbert, now, I cannot be near you, cannot picture you clothed without longing to remove your clothing. The muscles that move under your shirt, I know what they are now, the softly rounded shape of your breast, the patch of dark hair that grows between. And lower, I saw that, too, of course I did. Before you stepped forward and took your cap from my head and placed it over yourself. Before you said, 'You're early.' Before I slowly nodded._

 _I left the cave ~even now I don't know how my legs got me there. All I know is that somehow I was outside again, sitting where you had lain, my bare legs kicking out over the edge as though I sat on a swing. I must have looked out at a glorious view yet don't remember seeing anything but you. Your arms, your hips, your thighs, your sex. Please don't think me obscene. I am shaking as I write this ~though I doubt I need to make that clear, it's likely you can tell~ but I found it all so beautiful. All of you so beautiful, so that now since my return all I can think of is seeing you like that again._

 _When we took Davy's canoe out and then much water in, I know that I paddled to shore as urgently as you did. But when we reached the side of the pond and I stretched out my skirts to dry in the sun there was part of me that was disappointed. I sat there next to you half wishing you had been soaked to the skin. Some nights, and in the quiet parts of my day, I relive that moment and imagine you standing before me and peeling off your sodden shirt and trousers, your undergarments, and lying next to me in the long cool grass that grows by the water's edge. Sometimes it's so real that I can smell the silty mud, feel your wet limbs cool against my own. Your throat is brown and your arms. Your chest as white as new milk. The soft dark curls on your body spark with tiny beads in the sunlight. I think about taking my finger and beginning at your crown drawing a line all the way down, slow and steady and never stopping. Sometimes in my dream you reach for my hand and make me stop. Sometimes you bring it to the places where you want me to touch you. Sometimes you are still as still, and you close your eyes and let my hands wander where they will till I have painted you with a thousand spirals and your skin is hot and dry._

 _ **… … …**_

 _I have never been sure how much time passed between my discovering you and you coming out to the cliff edge. But when you did you were fully dressed, down to the perfect bows on your boots and your perfectly knotted tie. You sat down next to me and we talked about the climb, about the Roths and the Wrights, about how we should head over to the pier for some tangy gelato cups. So I pulled my stockings up over my legs while you decided to retie your shoes, and we walked those two miles in what felt like two minutes and strolled the promenade with perfect decorum. But every time you raised your cap to a stranger I remembered how you removed it from my head. I remembered you standing before me. I remembered the unrelenting pull of my hips towards yours, and the space between us thick with longing. It was a living entity, that space. Palpable and panting. As voluptuous as North pressed to North, each one unable to touch the other._

 _I think about what might have happened in the gloom and the quiet of that cave. If you hadn't taken your cap from me; if I hadn't let you. If instead of speaking you kissed me. If instead of me finding you it was you who discovered me._

 _I look at myself in my mirror and try to see myself through your eyes. I wonder, if I had been so surprised would I have covered myself or begged you to leave? I can't imagine ever wanting to now. I want to stand in front of you wearing nothing at all. I dream of it. And not only since June, for more than a year. From the day you sent me those lilies I have wanted to be seen by you, feel your eyes on me, on my breasts, my thighs, my limbs, my hidden places. I want you to know all of me. And after you've seen me I want you to touch me. And after you've touched me I want you to hear me. I want to hear my cries mingle with your own. I want to moan with you and sigh with you. I want to be with you. How I want to be with you._

 _It's no use writing any more, I can't. I can't. It's not enough, Gil, but oh... the sensations going through me now, do you ever feel them? I am soaked to the bones with such wondrous bliss. And it's all because of you._

 _Anne_

 _ **...**_

 **I hope that satisfied your curiosity about the cave. Thank you so much for your reviews and favourites, and especially to everyone who has come back to read another K with a K story. Mwah!**


	4. Near and Far

**Well, those were some unexpectedly wonderful reviews. Props to Lahiwe, what can I say but YES to the female gaze. To PelirrojaBiu YES to the invocation of Priss and Stella and the imagery of Untie the Knot. To FKAJ stoked to have smacked your gob. To Rebecca the Historian the Roths were a tip o' the hat to you. And to Bright River, I don't know if I would have thought about Victorian mores in medicine if not for your writing. To everyone else, thank you so much for your wonderful encouragement, I hope Gilbert's reply brings as many surprises as the previous chapter.  
**

 **...**

 _ **Harvey House, Redmond**_

 _ **K'port**_

 _ **October 10th**_

 _Dearest Heart,_

 _It's four in the morning, I haven't slept for twenty hours or more yet I know this letter will be the easiest I will ever write. I'm so happy right now, as though I could leave my body and fly out my window and meet you in that sky I dream about. Instead I'm sitting on my bed with this page pressed against a chem. text book and enjoying the breeze ruffle my whiskers. It's a strange sensation, and I look even stranger. I peer at myself in the shaving mirror and wonder who is the fellow looking back? I feel changed, Anne, as if I have shed an old skin. I'm gleaming and new and there's no returning to the old Gilbert. After the letter you wrote me, after the night I've had, I will never be the same._

 _I saw a baby being born tonight. I was there in the room with the young woman, her mother, and Mrs Guy, who is something of a midwife in Old Town. She was supposed to be at a meeting with Professor Reid in order to provide him with some live birth statistics in the slum districts. He called me out of pathology class because he'd heard that I was familiar with 'that part of Kingsport.' At first I was confused, thinking he was referring to my connection with the Blakes, but I reckon now he meant all those wayward boarding houses his pet pupil once lodged in._

 _It's true I've walked those streets on many a night and it wasn't long till I tracked her down. Her house is only a block from Patterson Street. The door was flung wide and there was a mother and daughter; the daughter labouring in Mrs Guy's parlour, her hands clasping the dining table, bellowing like your Dolly. I never even learned her full name, she was only ever called Reb. And she was astounding, Anne. There were times I forgot my instructions, her ferocity and strength so astounded me.  
_

 _Mrs Guy pulled me into the room and had me press my hands on Reb's lower back. Hard. I kept saying, "I'm going to topple her, I'm going to hurt her!" And all they would say was, "Harder, hard as you can!"_

 _I haven't yet determined the biological reasoning (though you can be sure that I mean to discover it) but from what I observed it appeared to provide some relief from the pain. Reb's voice indicated as much, when I would forget to press firmly, when my hands grew tired, she would make these mournful cries. But once I perfected the movement the room was filled with deep, low sounds that I have never heard a woman make before._

 _We passed four hours this way, me pressing on Reb's back every time a pain would come on, her mother wiping her brow or her legs. Mrs Guy for the most part sat and knitted -I later came to understand why- and every so often would remove herself from her chair by the hearth and replace the towels and rags under Reb's feet, or check the baby's movement by placing her cheek to Reb's belly._

 _There was only one moment when I grew afraid, when the sounds Reb made became anxious and desperate. She kept saying she could no longer do it. I was looking to her mother and Mrs Guy, expecting them to step in and administer some sort of technique to help the labour on. Yet all they said was, "Nonsense girl, you are doing it!"_

 _After that, Anne, something unexpected happened, the labour seemed to stop. Street urchins and neighbours were peering through the front door, Reb shifted over to a divan that had been covered in sacks and sheets, and her mother went to the back steps of the kitchen and took a few pulls on her pipe. I went to Mrs Guy who was resolutely unperturbed, and continued to check on the width of the sweater she was making._

 _I stood there impatient, almost angry, wanting her to tell me what to do next. She kept shushing me while she counted each stitch -I swear Anne, I wanted her shake her. Then she slowly hauls herself up and splashes some water over her hands, wiping them on her apron as though she was going to set out the tea things._

 _'Eight stitches between her rushes, each one thirty stitches long, child should be along any time now.'_

 _In the next moment Reb slid to the floor, announcing to the entire street that she had to push RIGHT NOW. I remember looking at the soiled rags at her feet thinking a brand new baby was about to land upon them. And then, I can't quite recall how it happened, Mrs Guy had me sit behind Reb and clasp the underside of her thighs, pulling her knees up toward her shoulders. I was sure she would split in two, the sound she made told me as much. She was soaked through and so was I, my ears rang with her groans and my arms ached. Reb's mother began busying herself with pots and baskets, while Mrs Guy knelt between Reb's legs and coaxed the baby into the world. With one last almighty holler, so loud I was convinced the constabulary would burst into the parlour, little Polly-Jean was born, looking as waxy and buttered up as a new born foal._

 _The baby was swaddled in the basket, the old pot caught the afterbirth, and in ten minutes Reb was settled on the divan devouring a bowl of mutton stew. Mrs Guy rinsed her hands and removed her apron, then she looks at me and asks whether it's too late to attend the meeting with Professor Reid._

 _I said, 'Mrs Guy, it's long after midnight.'_

 _'In that case,' she said, sitting down again, 'I'll bid you goodnight. Much appreciated, Mr Blythe. Nice set of hands, you've got. Good and strong.'_

 _She sent me on my way and I stood in the street under the stars not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Reb's perspiration drying on my shirt, your letter burning in my pocket, feeling like the luckiest man in the world._

 _I could never have written this account, dearest girl, if not for the letter you gifted to me. I've never been certain how much of the real world I should hold away from you; how much you can bear to see. All those fears I've had, that my need for you is unnatural in it's strength; that however much you proclaim your desire it could never match my own, they've gone. I feel new, Anne, as new as that baby girl. My love for you feels new, too. I've always had the notion that for as long as we've known each other it's been me endeavouring to catch up to you, or you attempting to catch up with me. But now, though we are miles apart, I feel that we have arrived at the same place. Stand at the same place, together._

 _If you knew what I am being taught about the female sex, how unstable and prone you are said to be. If you knew how I struggle to square what I know about you, about my own mother, about Reb and Rachel and the Pye women, with what I am told to believe. I've felt wretched being lectured by eminent physicians who tell me that a man should 'ration his contact with his wife lest she becomes barren'. That women who enjoy the touch of their husband have a sickness of the brain. Even The Fox, who once lived the life of a libertine, now scolds me on the 'inconstancy of the weaker vessel.'_

 _Anne, he is so changed this term. Yes, we laugh, take wine, debate and argue as we always do. But there's a hardness -more, a coldness- I've never seen before. There was always a hint of envy in his tone when he would catch me re-reading your letters. Now whenever he sees an envelope in my hand he mocks me, calls me a dupe who is under the thumb, that this fiancee of mine mustn't be too mindful of her reputation if she sends such brazen correspondence._

 _I'm afraid that last slur is my fault. There is an illicit copy of The Pearl going round the Halls, and I was foolish enough to boast one evening that your letters are more exquisite, more meaningful to me than a hundred of those magazines. It is no defense to say the fellow goaded me, I should have bit my tongue and let him think what he will. It's only that I can't bear to have you diminished in any way. I didn't think an earthbound man could feel what I feel, never thought I could love you more than I do. I don't know how else to explain it except to say you are my heart._

 _If not for the birth I witnessed tonight I think I would have at last followed through on an idle threat and gone to you. To read your words, to know your dreams, to live in your world. One moment I am sure I will dissolve away, the next I am rigid with want, as though my flesh hung on a frame of steel not bone._

 _You tell me, sweet world, you tell me you want to stand in front of me and feel my eyes on your hidden places. And I don't know how to respond except to speak the truth. I don't have any hidden places. I can't hide what I feel for you. Can't hide how I want you, what you do to me, what you have always done to me. And I think, I don't care, so be it, I've waited for you half my life. To hell with the lies they are teaching me in class, and The Fox's moods, and endless ache I pretend I can box away with your letters. I'm not going to be parted from you for another minute. If Phil can marry a penniless preacher, if Priss can follow her heart to Japan, then let me go to Summerside, let me have my wife._

 _Then this little mossy haired brat is born right in front of me and I know I was born for this life. I was meant to be a doctor. I can't give it up anymore than I can give you up. It would be like you deciding to give up writing in order to marry me. You'd never do that, would you? Not my Anne-girl. Not a woman who can write like that._

 _Your letters. There are days when I want to burn them all and beg you never send another. And then there are nights I want to plead that you only ever write about the dreams you have of us. They are my dreams too, Anne. I want to hold you so close I don't know where I begin and you end. I want to feel your hair fall over my chest, I want to taste every part of you the way I tasted your wrist._

 _When we stood face to face in the cavern, I don't deny I wanted you. The strength of will it took to take my cap and never let myself touch one hair on your head. But before that, when you entered the cave and I realised that the bare legged girl with red earth dusting each breast was my darling Miss Shirley, the first feeling that went through me was simply one of friend. Of home. If it all seemed so easy, Anne, it's because it was._

 _I'm so tired now. The sky is grey and I smell of blood and sweat. I'm going to wash up and fall on my bed and think of you. Summon your words and your world and as I am a lucky man meet you in my dreams._

 ** _..._**

 *** The Pearl was an infamous Victorian mag that was banned for obscenity**

 *** 'tasted your wrist' refers to chapter 2, The Windy Willows Love Letters**

 **Thanks for reading**


	5. A Birth and A Death

**Hello everyone, I know, I know I'm late with this update. I promised myself after the Nevada Primary I would get back to my story, but then I got transfixed by the lead-up to South Carolina. And as there's only so much time in my day to do exactly as I please and I devoted it all to a crazy election that I can't even vote in I'm afraid Anne and Gilbert were neglected. After Super Tuesday I will be properly dedicated I promise, to this story and to all the people who are owed replies to their messages. Until then, I hope this newsy exchange satisfies...**

 **with love and gratitude to L.M.M. ~everything is hers, only this idea is mine.**

 **...**

 _ **Windy Willows**_

 _ **Spooks Lane**_

 _ **S'side**_

 _ **October 15th**_

 _HAPPY BIRTHDAY GILBERT BLYTHE!_

 _Sending you succulent wishes of joy! Not only for your own birth but little Polly-Jean's as well. I am so proud of you, my dearest man, you are going to be the very best of doctors. I knew it when I was sixteen years old. I know it now. And concur with Mrs Guy about your exceptional hands!_

 _It's only fair that I take a moment to consider the rest of you (and now you know how often I give your fine self my thorough consideration) and hereby conclude each and every part of you equally magnificent. Your twenty-seven year old eyes and your twenty-seven year old ears, your twenty-seven year old shoulders, even your twenty-seven year old toes. I wonder if you have managed to grow twenty seven whiskers yet, or whether The Fox has outfoxed you once more?_

 _I'm sorry to hear he's all prickles and stings. I certainly sympathize because Katherine Brooke is getting to be like a splinter under my fingernail. It doesn't matter what I do I cannot work her out. All efforts to befriend her are rejected, the most benign of actions demeaned. Her very eyes seem to sneer to me, "Go on, Miss Shirley, give in and hate me, won't I be glad when you do!"_

 _I know she is trying to convince herself how unlovable she is. Yet I long to love her (I long to spank her even more!) Instead she rubs up against me like a cat with a cactus tail. The hurts I've endured, Gil, I'm sure I spend half my evenings pulling her barbs from my skin._

 _Do you know a good remedy for that, dearest-almost-doctor? I wish I had a cure for Mr Rasmussen, so consider this letter a packet from the Apothecary. But instead of pills I have filled it with twenty-seven kisses. Please administer as needed to soothe all your aching places and know that I love you, Gilbert Blythe! Stupidly! Wantonly! Infinitely!_

 _I hope your sweater is a good fit. It was curious to read about Mrs Guy's continual knitting. I've been on hand during childbirth on occasion, back when I was very young, but have never heard of such a practise. I was so surprised I let out a snort. Rebecca Dew thought Dusty Miller was choking on a mouse and burst into the parlour with a broom in her hands to shoo the guiltless cat away. She also said I had surely made the shoulders on your sweater far too wide. I am worried now that I did; that my (frequent) remembrance of you looms so large I have your measurements all wrong._

 _The colour too, tell me if you like it. I realise Charlie Sloane is famously fond of brown sweaters, because, as he likes to say 'they match his eyes, his hair, his ties, his trousers and his shoes.' But when I spied the balls of wool in Merrick's window piled up like cocoa dusted truffles I had to have them. Had to have you wrapped in them (excepting that one dropped stitch. I beg you, whenever you wear it keep your left arm down at your side at all times!) so that you may be as warm as you can be without me there to ensure it._

 _Oh, that it is was me about you instead your sweater. That it was you I was holding instead of your letter. I want to hear you say those words you wrote to me~ Close... stretched... taste... breasts. Not breast. Breasts. I never knew the addition of an S could send such a thrill through me. I keep imagining that word coming from your lips, they way your voice would sound, the shape of your mouth as you say it. What I can't imagine is the moustache doing its best to sprout above it, it seems too grown up a thing. Of course, you have now reached the stately age of twenty-seven. Twenty-seven! How did this happen, Gil? When yesterday we were writing out notes for the Observer and canvassing for AVIS._

 _Which reminds me, I believe I wrote you about a boy I met when I was on the Dawlish Road with Lewis. His name is Teddy Armstrong and he had the most cantankerous father (but that's another story.) Lewis took a photograph of the little fellow and he showed it to me today and I was immediately struck by how much he and Lewis resemble each other, truly they could pass for cousins. And more than that they might be, because Lewis' family hailed from NB and so did Teddy's father! It can't be a coincidence. Lewis intends to hunt out a photograph of himself when he was a boy in order to compare them. But I'm sure I am right. I am certain we have discovered a long lost relative of dear old Lewis, and all because we happened to be canvassing for the Dramatic Society._

 _What if I had never thought to put on a play last year? What if it hadn't been a success, or if the school went through with their threats to have me dismissed? If I hadn't discovered those diaries, if the Pringles hadn't decreed that all was forgiven? All these things had to happen in order for Lewis and I to find ourselves knocking on the Armstrong's door. One never knows just what's around that bend, what dwells in the land of Tomorrow. Whenever my philosophy failed me Matthew used to say, "Something might still come of it, Anne, after all an egg don't know it can fly." But I think Rachel's words are the most apt here~_

 _It was Providence matched Lewis and Teddy up, that's what!  
_

 ** _Later_**

 _It's almost ten. I haven't drawn the curtains yet and I'm glad. The windows in my tower frame the most enchanting view, each one revealing a stretch of midnight coloured velvet studded with an infinite number of~ I was going to write diamonds, but of course they are pearls. Because pearls are for tears._

 _Please don't worry for me, Gilbert, but I've been crying tonight. If you noticed how jumbled my thoughts seem it's due to the fact that I was struggling to ignore the ache behind my eyes. By the time I wrote the word Providence I could no longer hold back the tears. I knew I had to stop for a while, not least because I would probably make the ink run._

 _I want to tell you something, so bend in close because I don't believe I can say this twice. You see, when I admitted my need for you to see my hidden places it was more daring than you know. I think what I truly meant were the places you can never see, the ones inside of me. Little corners that are quiet and dark and always there. From the moment I suspected Lewis had found his family I began to imagine what it would be like to look at a photograph of a child and see my own features staring back. I wondered if somewhere in this big wide world, or even in the next street, there might be a Shirley or a Willis with arms stretched wide waiting for me._

 _Suddenly I was afraid to have put the idea in Lewis' head. His parents both died six years ago and his aunt a few years later. Ever since he has been supporting himself. His boarding house is nice enough but it's not a home. I want so much for him to have a real home. If you had seen that photograph, Gil, the likeness was uncanny, the words were out of my mouth before I realised what I had said. Why am I so impulsive! I had no right to get his hopes up, and ever since this feeling has been gnawing at me, such a chimeric beast of a thing. Where one moment I chide myself for filling Lewis with a false future and the next I am wishing I had a such a possibility for myself._

 _I'll leave this now and finish it in the morning. It must be posted tomorrow or it will never arrive in time for your most auspicious day. I hope it is, best beloved. I hope you unwrap your new sweater and feel the deepest, softest love wrapped about you._

 _Goodnight..._

 ** _…_**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond, K'port_**

 ** _October 20th  
_**

 _My Anne-est of Anne-girls,_

 _I have just returned from Patterson Street, not to celebrate my birthday but another little soul's. Samuel Blake was born on the same day I was- on the 19th day of October at 1 o'clock in the morning. Phil's mother had Dr Latham on hand, who is a consulting obsterician with a peerless reputation in Kingsport, but thankfully he was not needed. Phil is pale and happy, the Reverend Jo is relieved, and Samuel Jonas Gordon Blake is perfect. I lingered just long enough to catch a glimpse of his Phil-like curls and his Jo-like ears then I strolled back to the Halls to find a parcel waiting for me._

 _You'll be pleased to know I am wearing it now, it fits just fine and the colour's just right. If you must know the gift that meant the most to me is the one you weren't sure you should send._

 _When you wrote to me about Lewis finding his family, how it stirred such feeling in you, I was so happy, Anne. I've wished more times than I can count for you to tell me something -anything- about your folks, and the life you had before you came to the Island. I wondered if you might have spoken about it this summer. Wondered how you felt at our Engagement party when the Blythe clan outnumbered your people so entirely. My cousin Laird hails from NB, I could write to him of Lewis' particulars and see if we might gather fresh information. It's possible there are Willis' and Shirleys to be found as well. Shirley's an uncommon name, have you never thought-_

 _I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'll leave these questions to you. I just wanted you to know I can help you, Anne. I want to. When you wrote of looking at that boy's photograph and wondered what it would be like to see someone who looked like you, it hit me like a blow to the chest. I understood better than I ever did why you dote on babies the way you do, because you long for your own._

 _Now you can take another swing at me (the distance between us holds some benefit at least) but I have to tell you that whenever I picture our children -our many, many, children- they all have your wild red hair and your soft grey eyes, even those freckles you hope I don't notice. Well, I have noticed them, there are exactly seven and you wouldn't be you without them. Just like you wouldn't be you if you didn't have your impulsive side -so if you must spank Miss Brooke who am I to stand in your way. As for regretting your words to Lewis, let's see where this bend in the road leads first. Wherever it goes I'll walk it with you, Anne. I promise._

 _Enough with this sappy talk, I have a paper to finish and a beard to grow. Twenty-seven whiskers! I admit it's getting scratchy, and I certainly look ragged compared to the plush facial hair of my room mate. The Fox's beard's is so long he's threatening to braid the ends of his moustache like an actual Viking. He's more cheerful this week which is a relief, and has a thoroughly debauched evening in mind to celebrate my 'grand old age' this Saturday. I'll be sure to share the details in my next letter, but I already know it will be nothing to spending my time with you._

 _I miss you so much tonight._

 _Gilbert_

 ** _…_**

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane_**

 ** _S'side_**

 ** _November 2nd_**

 _Dear Gilbert,_

 _It's true! What I hoped for is true! My heart is so filled with feeling it's as though I've outgrown my shirtwaist; spilling over with both gladness for Lewis and sadness too. Because he died, Gilbert, little Teddy has died. He contracted pneumonia not long after we met. Lewis' photograph of him is the only one in the world. It's a strange sort of miracle ~but then miracles often are._

 _Lewis asked me to accompany him to Teddy's place and give his father the photograph. At the time we had no idea that Mr Armstrong had lost his son. We discovered that from a neighbour, who told us how inconsolable he was that he had no image of the little fellow to remember him by. I wasn't sure if Mr Armstrong would want to see us, he was terribly cold when first we met. But the man who opened the door that afternoon, oh Gil, he was hollowed out and worn down by grief, without an ounce of fight left in him._

 _Then Lewis placed the photograph in his hands and it was like watching the first spring bulbs pierce through the snow. Under that cold exterior lay the tenderest heart. I was so relieved, I felt sure such a sweet little boy could never have loved an ogre. Mr Armstrong wept and laughed and I discovered a lovable man who opened his heart to Lewis the moment he heard his story. It turns out that Mr Armstrong's half-sister was Lewis's mother! Mr Armstrong is Lewis's uncle! Isn't it wonderful, Gilbert! There he was all alone in the world and there was Mr Armstrong who had lost his wife and his child, and NOW they have each other. Lewis intends to visit this weekend and I feel certain he'll be asked to stay. He'll have a home, Gil, instead of some nondescript boarding house._

 _I have been thinking on what you said, about seeking my long lost relatives, but I really don't have the heart for it. It's not that I'm afraid of what I'll find (though imagine the repercussions if there should be some connection between myself and the Pyes! Or the Gardners! I am laughing now ~and in a most unchristian manner.) It's just that I don't really have any holes to fill. I already have a family. I have Matthew and Marilla and Rachel and the twins, I have the Wrights and the Blakes and even a few Pringles._

 _Most of all I have you, Gilbert Blythe. You are my family, the man who'll give me children ~though please don't wish red hair on them Gilbert, it's not funny. As for freckles! But I'll say no more ~just know I am quietly plotting my revenge. Oh, and something else as well. I promised Phil I would visit her little Samuel just as soon as I can manage it, and wondered if you might possibly like to see me, too. I can't be definite about dates, before Christmas would be preferable, but it is just as likely to be after. While Katherine would like nothing more than to have the run of the school, she would rather spite me and decline my request for leave than take any pleasure for herself._

 _Well I shall. I shall pluck all the pleasures I can find and hold them close and breathe them in until they are one with me. Imagine it is not next month or next week but tonight that I am to see you again. Imagine the thousand and one things I want to say to you ~and do with you..._

 _Gilbert, when will you share some of your own dreams? I read over your letters (some passages more than others) and your words are like whispers against my ear. It's a tantalising sensation but it leaves me wanting MORE!_

 _Have you ever drawn your finger lightly over your ear, then to the soft skin behind it, down your neck to your collarbone... Whenever I wear a collarless dress I'm always catching myself tracing a fingertip along the scooped neckline where skin and fabric meet. It feels so comforting and exquisite, and I wonder do men do such things? Do you do such things? What are you dreaming about, Gilbert Blythe, when you are dreaming of me?_

 _I must let this go now and climb into bed and try not to miss you as much as I do._

 _Your very own Anne-girl_

...

 ***Charlie Sloane's proclivity for all things brown a reference to chapter one, Redmond Diaries -the first year**

 **I hope that was worth the wait, a strange sort of chapter but one that plants seeds for future events (otherwise known as the filler chapter) I shall be much more productive from now on, I promise. Thanks for reading :o)**


	6. Men and Women

**Look at me, back so soon! Super Tuesday was so nervewracking writing was the only thing that calmed me down and the next thing I knew it was finished. To all of you who were looking forward to a tale of drunken debauchery I am sorry to say you won't find it here -but please feel free to write your own, I would love to read a story about The Fox! What happens below is something that I had in mind for Mr Rasmussen and Miss Swales from the very beginning, because people don't always get their fairytale ending. As always I'd love to know what you think.**

 **...**

 _ **Spook's Lane**_

 _ **Windy Willows,**_

 _ **S'side**_

 _ **December 12th**_

 _Well my darling, the deed is done._

 _Against all expectation Katherine Brooke has accepted my invitation to Green Gables. Yes, Gilbert, you read that right, she ACCEPTED my invitation!_

 _Now I am sitting at my desk wondering if I have done the right thing. A very cold feeling is spreading through my bones, as if I have walked myself into some diabolical trick and given Miss Brooke the chance to ruin a most anticipated Christmas ~the way she ruined my chance to see you and the Blakes._

 _If you should go to Patterson Street before the end of term it would be best not to mention Miss Brooke. Phil vows she will never forgive 'That Woman' for making it impossible for me to come to Kingsport. Then again she is amazed that all Canada hasn't lined up outside her door to behold her baby boy. Not that I blame her. Samuel is ravishing, all dimples and curls, I can almost smell his divine baby scent as I gaze at his photograph. But it's not the same, Gil. I want him to know me. Being away from you all, there are days when I wonder why I do what I do. I used to be so hungry for love, so desperate to belong to someone. Now I know so many kindred spirits yet live so far from them all._

 _Loneliness can choke a person. I look at my Little Elizabeth, at Katherine, and I can't help remember what it was like to feel so small. I don't know which is worse, Elizabeth, who has a father, but one who neglects her so utterly. Or Katherine who has no one. Gil, she doesn't even have herself._

 _I went to her room on Temple Street this evening, and a meaner, nastier place I haven't seen for the longest time. It reminded me of the Hammonds. The air was thick with the smell of boiled cabbage and rancid fat, the walls were held up by wallpaper paste and little else. It was so bone-achingly cold, yet there was only a water-stained rag at the window and thin grey blanket on her bed. If I'd lived there myself I might have have taken some delight in furnishing it with some friendly geraniums and a good dose of imagination (though nothing can imagine the smell of cabbage water away, I have tried and it cannot be done!) Yet Katherine had gone out of her way to keep it as ugly and unwelcoming as possible._

 _I always suspected she was cruellest to herself. Now I know that she is. Even the Hammonds had a few nice belongings, though I doubt there are any left now. Mrs Hammond smashed every piece of her blue and white china when her husband didn't come home for a week. And Mr Hammond sold whatever he could get his hands on, the cuckoo clock, the glass figurine, even the brass door knocker. I realise how horrid this sounds, but there was a time when they valued beauty for its own sake. Katherine Brooke has nothing. The loveliest thing in the room was the sky outside her window but she even refused to look at that. It wasn't pity I felt then but anger, for the way she purposely shuts life out._

 _I have lived pain, Gil, and I know I only deepen the wound when I neglect to give thanks for the perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on summer humid nights and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives. I believe Katherine would deny their very existence. She must come with me to Green Gables and have the beauty of that place work on her as it worked on me. I believe it may be the only way she will ever begin to live again._

 _ **…**_

 _ **Harvey House**_

 _ **Redmond, K'port**_

 _ **December 17th**_

 _Hello sweetheart,_

 _I trust that you are now enjoying the warm embrace of Green Gables and hope Miss Brooke is finally starting to thaw. In fact I don't hope it, I know it. Whether you realise it or not, Miss Shirley, she turned toward the sun the moment you asked her to join you for Christmas. The magic isn't in Avonlea, it's in you, Anne. It always was._

 _If I sound sappy again, it's because I am. But this has less to do with how excited I am to see you and more to do with the two shots of akavit James Denver just poured down my throat. I have news of my own and not the good kind, but please know it in no way affects my plan to knock on the door of Green Gables in five days time. Though it will have some bearing on my appearance._

 _I'm afraid those lips you love so well have taken a bit of a beating. Rest assured this wasn't due to some prank on my part, the only thing I am guilty of is opening the door. It must have been some time past midnight, The Fox was out as he often is these days. I should have tried harder to discover the truth about his moods. I've been so caught up in my work load, caught up in you. I neglected him, Anne, and now I don't know what to do. My anger and pity are as bound together as your own feelings for Katherine, but unlike you my philosophy is sorely lacking._

 _Forgive me for not making more sense, my lip is throbbing. I've examined it briefly and can't see the need for stitches. Then again it's difficult to make out the extent of the cut when there is a moustache in the way._

 _The Fox has just returned, I'll continue later..._

 _..._

 _It's four in the morning, I've been talking with Ed for most of the night. He's now slumped in his armchair sleeping off whatever he's been drinking. But I can't sleep. I wish you were here, Anne, so I am going to pretend that you are sitting with me and helping me discover a way through this mess._

 _I woke around twelve to the sound of someone thumping on our door. I thought it was Ed -or someone dragging Ed's sorry self into the room. Instead I saw a man about my height in a blazing fit of anger. He didn't come inside, instead he stood in the hallway demanding to know if this was the den of sin known as 'the Fox and Coop'?_

 _I could barely answer before he said, 'Then you know my sister!'_

 _'Which sister would this be?' I replied. Possibly not the smartest answer but I was so muddled words failed me._

 _'Which sister?' he yelled at me, 'how many women have you lured up here?'_

 _By this time a few other fellows were peering from behind their doors, I tried to quieten the man down but he wouldn't have it._

 _'What?' he said, "You ruin Dorelia's reputation and expect me to protect your own!'_

 _'This is about Miss Swales?' I said._

 _'So you do know her. Well I have a message from her, you scum!' and he cracked his fist against my mouth._

 _It got confusing then, I remember Denver and another man pulling Mr Swales away while I tried to catch the stream of blood. I had to give that up and pulled off my vest to mop it up, which is when Denver returned to tell me that Dorelia's brother had been removed from the building. We sat by the fire for a while, with Denver examining my cut every ten minutes. He is interested in septic skin conditions and was hoping it might become gangrenous. When he was sure I wasn't going to turn green he left. Which is when I began this letter._

 _Ed has made a terrible hash of things, Anne. I confronted him the moment he returned, he was so drunk he hadn't noticed that my lip was as fat as a cream puff. When I told him what happened, he laughed. I swear I was about to take a swing at him next, then in the very next moment he slid to the floor, curled up in a ball and started to sob. I've never seen another fellow cry so hard, not even Fred when his gun dog died. I sat with him and after the tears ceased it all came out._

 _He told me he doesn't care who knows this because his life is over now -and Anne there are moments when I don't care if it is. He told me -I have his permission to tell you- that Dorelia is with child._

 _'You must marry her,' I told him._

 _'Marry her?' he said, 'It's alright for you with your fancy scholarship! Father is already furious that I repeated first year. If he discovers this he will disown me.'_

 _I shouldn't kick a man when he's down but I called him a coward. By the end he got so angry he said the most despicable things. I won't quote him but you may understand that he was doubtful the child was even his._

 _I wanted to walk away, then I remembered the efforts you took with Katherine and I knew if I abandoned him there was a fair chance he would become desperate. I've met his father before, he is a strict Calvinist who wanted Ed to go into the church. The one alternative he was allowed to consider was medicine, which explains why Ed's heart has never truly been in it. He's only here to escape his father, but he's done much worse than that. Because Ed's in debt. He owes hundreds of dollars all over Kingsport. It's a hopeless situation, even if he loved Miss Swales what sort of life could he give her? I can't think of any solutions, I can't think of anything except how mad I am. How could he let this happen, Anne?_

 _Then there is Miss Swales, I know it's unfair but I am angry with her, too. In fact I'm too angry to write anymore, I'm sorry, dearest girl, for unburdening myself like this. I'm not even sure if this is a letter I can bring myself to send. I just need you, Anne. I need your ability to turn disaster into opportunity. Because I can't see any happy endings here. Not for Ed, or Miss Swales, and especially not for the child._

 _ **…**_

 _I met with Miss Swales this afternoon. I went to the Nursing Halls after church and found a friend of hers who gave me her new address. Her family have her hidden away at a cousin's in a broken down part of Bolingbroke. She didn't recognise me at first -no doubt due to my thin looking beard and swollen lip. She wasn't sorry her brother attacked the wrong man, not at first, I think she assumed I had come to convince her to keep quiet. We went for a short walk and I told her about Ada Corke. She's now a matron with the Sisters of St Martha in Charlottetown. It's an open secret that unwed mothers who work there may keep their children with them instead of leaving them in an asylum. I'm certain that someone with Miss Swales' qualifications would be welcome._

 _I haven't had time to write Miss Corke, though I can't see her objecting. For now Miss Swales is unconvinced, she still holds out hope that Ed will marry her. She knows he's in debt, she knows his father will disown him, she even knows of his suspicion that the child isn't his, and still she wants to marry him. It's beyond my comprehension. It doesn't seem to matter how much I learn about women, Anne, I can name your every organ and disorder and you still find a way to mystify me._

 _I must leave this now, I'm writing it in the coffee house opposite the post office, and have still to write to Miss Corke. I just wanted you to know if I don't see you until Christmas Eve it's because I have taken a detour to Charlottetown with Miss Swales. I told her if she changed her mind to meet me at the station on Thursday for the 5 o'clock to Caribou, and I will accompany her to St Martha's. If not then I may arrive at Green Gables before this letter does._

 _Don't worry, my ragged whiskers will be gone -Mam would never forgive me if I took to wearing a beard. Though I make no promises about the moustache. The idea of taking a razor blade to my lip fills me with more dread than a Sloane ham bone. And there is going to be another disappointment too. I have no time left to find you a gift for Christmas, as it is I will have to purchase something from a stall at the station for Katherine. But nothing I could find there will ever be good enough for you. It looks like I have no choice but to give you the gift you've been hinting for all November -and most of December- and write you something scandalous instead._

 _I want to see you, I want to kiss you even more (I'm hoping when you see my lip you want to kiss me back.) I'm in love with you, Miss Shirley and fully intend to spend from December 23rd (or 24th) until January 3rd proving it to you. Just promise me one thing, don't read the next letter I give you until I've gone._

 _Yours indefinitely, Gilbert Blythe_

 **...**

 ***first sentence in the last paragraph of Anne's letter paraphrased from the writing of Ann Voskamp**

 ***akavit is a Danish spirit kind of like schnapps**

 ***the ham bone comment is a bit of a running joke all through the Redmond Diaries**

 **So that was my story of how Gilbert came to have a moustache that Christmas! ;o) Thank you so much for reading and all your wonderful comments.**


	7. Past and Future

_**Allwinds, Avonlea**_

 _ **December 24th, 1888  
**_

 _For the woman who will be my wife,_

 _It's Christmas Eve and I'm sitting at my desk in my old room thinking of my beloved girl. It's like slipping into an old jacket or a faithful pair of boots, it happens so naturally and it always feels right. I can't be here without meeting some memory of you._

 _Here is where I attacked Euclid in hopes of besting you in the geometry exam. Here is where I hid your paper rose -and where I tore it to pieces when you refused to forgive me that day at the pond. I knew then that I loved you, Anne. Because I never cared about winning anyone the way I cared about winning you. I would lie in bed and stare up at my ceiling and pretend you and I were friends. To be honest my sixteen year old self imagined more than that. I once wrote to you that I was rather fond of you dripping wet, and in all your letters you've never once asked me why. What I meant was seeing you standing before me soaked to the skin with that petulant look on your face left a quite an impression on me.  
_

 _Remember when the Sunday school teacher divided us up? Girls with Mrs Allen and boys with the Reverend to discuss 'hygenic moral development' -otherwise known as The Talk. I'm not sure what wisdom Mrs Allen shared with you (though the Gillis girls spread all sorts of hair-raising tales) but I can recall Mr Allen's words as though it was yesterday. He said a young man must always behave as though his future wife was watching him. You don't know how many times I debated whether it was right to think about you the way that I did. Some days I would reason that as I planned on marrying you anyway dreaming of kissing your damp little face hardly mattered. Other times I would convince myself that no future wife would be able to peer inside my head. I could think those thoughts and no one, not even that infuriating Anne Shirley, would be ever be able to tell. Yes, I tested that theory. No, you never did._

 _I want to kick that boy in the rump. I also want to scruff his hair and tell him it will be alright. She might make you cry, she might even break your heart, but then she'll turn around and love you so hard you'll feel invincible, and you'll gladly spend the rest of your life being good enough for her._

 _One of the cats, a marmalade named Gracie, just sprang onto my lap and I lost my train of thought. I've read over what I've written and I'm guessing it won't make you blush even half as hard as I do when you I read what you write to me. What can I tell you that will turn you beet red; how about the fact that I have seen you, too?_

 _This happened during the Christmas tableau you put on with your pupils in our infamous blue hall. You were playing the part of an angel. I was standing in the wings with Jake Donnell because he was threatening to run off the stage and you pleaded with me to hold him fast. There you stood with your rag-tag group of shepherds, arms raised over your flock. Light poured through your white tunic and your silhouette was so perfectly revealed you might have been wearing nothing at all. That was the reason I let Jake go, the reason you saw me on stage in Jake's fleece pretending to be a six foot lamb. The reason I didn't stay for refreshments or offer to drive you home. Because I couldn't wait to be alone with that image of you. You were burned into me as surely as if I had been staring at the sun. So that hours afterwards, days even, every time I blinked I could see you -all of you- flashing before me._

 _I know you wear a corset that supports only the merest part of your breasts, I know there is only a thin chemise between your shirtwaist and your bare skin. The night when you told me you'd marry me and you brought my hand to your chest, you wanted me to know how fast your heart was beating. But I felt much more than that. Your were so warm, so unbelievably soft, then suddenly not soft at all but taut against my palm. I never believed that a woman's body could react like a man's. I thought I would have to be so careful with you, that it might be months before you'd let me touch more than your fingertips. I wouldn't have minded, Anne, I've wanted you for so long that your elbow would have satisfied me. Then you kissed me the way you did, you brought my hand to your green dress and I thought to myself, Blythe, you are in all sorts of trouble._

 _In my dreams it was always me possessing you. I didn't consider what it would feel like to be loved back. What does it feel like to be loved by Anne Shirley? Like a wave, like a gust of sweet, warm air, like lying under a starry sky. That's one of favourite memories of us. I knew when I began this letter that I would share it with you. It's just that knowing you are going to write something and actually writing it are not the same thing. I'm mindful of that voice in my head telling me to get this right. I don't want to disappoint you, or worse disgust you. Then I remember that you love me -YOU LOVE ME- and I feel like nothing is beyond my grasp, like I'm holding heaven in my hands. Which brings me to that sky again._

 _I used to have these dreams where I would look up at the sky and then you were that sky. And you were in me and over me and under me, you were water and starlight and that great warm wind all in one. Sometimes the dream was close and quiet, your lips were connected with mine and we kissed each other for hours. Some nights I would wake scared out of my wits, when it felt like I was drowning. Then there were the dreams that devastated me because you seemed so oblivious; I could have been any man, and I woke up feeling one inch tall._

 _What I remember most, what I still like to think about, are the dreams when I knew that you wanted me, too. Touching you was like dipping my hand in a running stream; I swear I could drink you in. Your dress slid over me like velvet moss, your hair like weed in the water. Your hips, your thighs, your breast pressed against my own, and we fitted together so easily I never wanted to let you go. In the end I would fall back toward earth while you remained in the sky. You were always above me, which now I consider it is not the usual way of things. But then there's never been anything usual about you._

 _I suppose it comes from years of looking up at my ceiling and picturing you. I even got hold of some brass tacks and picked out the Virgin's constellation above my bed. That's how gone I was on you, Anne Shirley. The first thing I remember when the fever broke was waking up and seeing those tacks had been removed. Their presence haunted me like a phantom limb, I wanted them back but I could hardly tell my mother that. It was days before I could bring myself to ask Pup whether anything regrettable passed from my lips when I was ill._

 _'Mostly nonsense,' was his careful reply._

 _'And the stuff that wasn't nonsense?' I forced myself to say._

 _'Well, surely what ain't nonsense must be true. Mam and I know that much, Gil.'_

 _You see why I keep telling you they love you, they've known about my feelings for you since I was a boy._

 _I'm not that boy anymore. I no longer have to imagine what it would be like to kiss you or feel you under my hands. When I dream of you now there's no sky, no stars, no rushing water. There's just you. The taste of you, the smell of you -if you knew what the smell of you does to me. Whenever we spend time together and I undress at night the first thing I do is remove my shirt and take a deep breath and see if I can find some trace. And if I do it's like fire running through my veins, to my arms and legs and to everywhere else._

 _When you wrote to me about the moment in the cave, you said you felt your hips were being pulled toward mine. I was amazed when I read that (also relieved) because I fight against that pull constantly. I felt it in the White Sands cave, and the day we nearly sank Davy's canoe. You're not the only one who wishes we got soaking wet. But I don't want to watch you undress. I want the delight of peeling your clothes from you._

 _Your shift is translucent against your breasts. Your undergarments cling to your thighs. You shiver as you raise your arms above your head and I slip each item from you until you're wearing nothing at all. Then I say, Are you sure, Anne? And you nod in that beautiful way that you do. And I take you right there by the water, and you take me, and it's so easy and wonderful. You've got this trembling smile on your face. I wouldn't like to guess what I look like. Probably a colossal idiot who can't believe this is really happening. Then it's over and I'm alone. There's a pile of text books beside my bed, The Fox snoring in a far off corner, and I miss you so powerfully I'm sure my longing must wake you though you're miles away._

 _That's what I'm dreaming of, Anne; what I'm waiting for. It was agony this afternoon when we were left in the parlour together. Your cheeks were pink from snowshoeing, and your eyes were huge. I wanted to kiss you so hard the moment that door was closed, but I couldn't. And you sat me down upon the sofa and grazed your mouth against my split lip so gently it was maddening._

 _'Does that hurt?' you asked me, with this wicked smile, then you brought your lips to my chin._

 _'Does this hurt?' you asked me, then you slid my jacket from my shoulders and brought your lips to my neck._

 _You moved to my chest and asked me again. Moved and asked me, moved and asked me, till there was nowhere that your mouth hadn't touched._

 _I'm sure you'll laugh when I tell you that Gracie has made an indignant leap from my lap. It feels right that I'm writing this in my old room. To know that you were once here, that your being here caused you to reconsider all you knew about me, makes sense somehow. Because every wall and every floorboard is steeped in you. Even this old desk bears testament; just here by my lamp, scored deep like a scar, the words-_

 _Heavenly Lone Iris_

 _And I do, Anne, I always have and I'll never stop._

 _Happy Christmas, beloved girl._

 _Gil_

...

 ***Gilbert's sky dream first mentioned in ch 9, Redmond Diaries -the second year. The dreams were inspired by ch 4, Redmond Diaries -the second year.**

 ***Heavenly Lone Iris is an anagram first mentioned in chapter 2, Redmond Diaries -the first year. It also refers to a scene in chapter 4, Redmond Diaries -the fourth year, where Anne sees it carved into his desk (because I'm kysmit like that.)**

 **Thank you once again for your gorgeous reviews! I hope you enjoyed a no holds barred Gilbert love letter. I will PM tomorrow where I can but to those I can't-**

 **Astra Kelly lovely to know you are still reading!**

 **LizDexic it's so cool to meet another election tragic, your Kwak knowledge is so impressive I'm blushing. But Anne didn't talk about seeing Gil's hip in UTK, she mentioned some boys skinny dipping. Go on read it again ;o) The hip scene was in chapter 10 of Redmond Diaries -the fourth year. I love the way that flash of hip seemed to resonate with some readers. Hips are beautiful.**

 **Anna I would say that Anne was pretty into it right from the get go, but you're right there were jitters. I thought after all that build up it would be natural to feel the burden of those expectations. Maybe I over did it. I didn't write UTK with the Letters in mind, I didn't know then what I know now, but I've always tried really hard to have these characters mesh with the previous stories. It's helpful to know when it hasn't quite worked. As to writing another honeymoon story, it is so hard to write M, I think I have literally used up all my euphemisms! As for Fred, you might enjoy chapter 10 of The Windy Willows Love Letters, where I go into more detail about his friendship with Gilbert. Redmond Diaries also has loads about the courtship of Fred and Diana, particularly the third year.  
**

 **Cate anyone who says Gilbert-ier is my hero, thank you!**

 **...**


	8. Further and Further

_**Windy Willows**_

 _ **The street where ghosts (should) walk**_

 _ **January 5th, 1889  
**_

 _My Esteemed Friend,_

 _That isn't anything Aunt Chatty's grandmother wrote. It's only something she would have written if she'd thought of it.  
_

 _I've made a New Year's resolution to write sensible love letters. Do you suppose such a thing is possible?_

 _I have left dear old Green Gables but I have returned to dear Windy Willows... I'm so glad I like Windy Willows. It would be dreadful to live in a place I didn't like... that didn't seem friendly to me... that didn't say, 'I'm glad you're back.'_

 _There is a crimson star hanging low over the white Storm King. I wish you were here to watch it with me. If you were, I really think it would be more than a moment of esteem and friendship._

 _I want to meet you there, for gravity to relinquish its claim on us so that we might find each other in that sky you dream about. Do you know, dearest, I believe we are already there. That's no red star but our own bright hearts colliding. Ribbon of meteors lie in our wake, and filmy streams of cloud; the wind cradles us in a great warm gust and we are weightless and fearless and free. There's no one to see us, know one to know what we do ~except perhaps the Angels and they're not telling._

 _I had almost forgotten my infamous debut as Gabriel. Janice Cotton came down with tonsillitis just hours before the play was about to start. I selected her for the part because she was so tall ~and because none of the boys in my class would countenance wearing a long white smock. I had to remove my dress in order to fit it, as it was it only came to my calves. Though you don't seem to remember that detail, do you, Gilbert Blythe? I suppose your mind was on other things. But I won't be Miss-ish about it, not least because you weren't the only one to get an eyeful that night. If you hadn't disappeared so quickly after the performance you would have known that, 'We saw Miss Shirley's legs go all the way up!' was the talk of the Christmas supper._

 _How glad I am that you love a fool like me. Not only tonight but for all those years. The Anne Shirley of days gone by would have painted you blue if she suspected you harboured such ardent inclinations. But I can hardly be answerable to that Anne, Gil. How did Miss Austen put it~_

 _"That in cases such as these a good memory is unpardonable."_

 _All the same it was exhilarating to read over your memories. Even lovelier knowing that some of them are mine. I have seen those brass tacks and the anagram containing my name, but I never told you because I didn't know how. My feelings for you were so mixed up with this half formed idea that all the Alpine flowers in Switzerland could never compare with the fact that an old chum of mine had scored my name into his desk a thousand times over. I felt I had intruded on your secret self ~and no one, not even fearless Gilbert Blythe is looking to be confronted with that.  
_

 _Promise you'll always write letters like the one that has been tucked up next to my heart since Christmas morning. I've had to leave the topmost fastening undone just to hold it in. Though my choice of corset is not half so scandalous as you believe, most women wear this style now. The days of stays that lace up to your armpits are long gone. (All the better to bring your hand to my breasts every moment I can manage it.)_

 _It never occurred to me how improper my gesture was. All I knew was that I was overflowing with love for you and wanted you to know it. I shall never forget your face as you heard me tell you that I loved you for the first time. There was a little slip of a moon overhead that shone in your golden eyes. They seemed so enormous and I realised they were brimful of tears. What I felt at that moment... what I felt when I knew that my love meant everything to you... I've never known such a feeling before, never believed that anyone could love the way I do. That we endured false dawns and mistaken feelings and knew without knowing we were waiting for one another. I am burst open, just have you have burst open... wherever I go I spill stars all over the heavens._

 _You wrote that you dreamed of taking me, Gilbert... so take me, take me into your sky. We can meet up there, you and I. There is no waiting, no trouble for you to get into. Just hours of bliss as you touch me and kiss me and tell me your dreams. And then hours of delight as I touch you and kiss you and and answer your dream with one of my own._

 _It's the morning of Convocation and I am lying in my copper bath. As I move my limbs fragrant water spills over the lip of the tub, and steam beads on my brow and my cheeks. Patty's Place is empty. Phil refuses to wait a moment longer and has left with Aunt Jimsie for the reception. The front door has been left unbolted. I can hear it open and close with the wind, and then footsteps on the stairs. I imagine Phil has forgotten something so I let myself sink into deep, sweet water._

 _My skin is pink and shining, just like the enamel heart I am wearing round my neck. I'm running it between my lips, holding it in my mouth. It feels like a secret. It's smooth and cool and slowly melts away on my tongue so that all that remains is the truth. I'm almost at it's centre. I'm so close, so close to what has always been true. I know it because my own secret heart is pulsing and swelling so maddeningly I want to cry out._

 _It's at this moment that a hand appears at my bedroom door. It isn't a woman's hand, neither is it sheathed in expensive suede. It's broad and brown, and carrying a small striped box. All at once the air is perfumed with lily of the valley and I am filled with the smell of Summer, of endless days to wander meadows and study the clouds, of vivid trees and reed fringed brooks and sun warmed fruit and fresh cut grass. Before I know it I am saying your name. Not by way of greeting, but with a soft sigh that falls on my out breath and feels like a prayer._

 _Then you enter, then you see me, and..._

 _Sometimes you walk over to me, remove the posy from it's box and set it upon the water. Wordlessly you offer your hand to help me from my bath before wrapping me in a soft warm towel that I left by my little stove. You dry my hair and comb it down my back. You're so gentle and calm I can't speak. I feel no shame, only cared for. Beloved. You kiss the top of my head and leave the room and I feel such peace. I feel beautiful, beautiful, beautiful as I button up your favourite dress. I wonder if it was all a dream. Then I look at my bath and there are your lilies floating upon the water. And I know it was real... and that I love you..._

 _Then there are other times ~you know I wouldn't be me if I didn't have those~ when you kick the door open and toss the lilies on my bed. You tear your coat off impatiently, and before I know it you're by my side, peering down with eyes that are wild, almost angry, and you say,_

 _'I should be sorry for bursting in on you like this... but I'm not~'_

 _You never finish that sentence because I pull you into the bath with me and a great warm wave of water splashes all over the floor. Your best blue suit is soaking wet and we're kissing and tussling frantically. Until that urgency gives way to an exquisite deliberateness, and it all becomes quiet and slow. There's just the softest splash, a trickle of water, and the slap of wet shirt sleeves being pulled from your arms.._

 _In real life I think if you had tried such a thing I would have flung a cake of soap at your head. But in dreams, Gilbert, in dreams we can do anything._

 _That's not the ceiling above you, that's not the wind you can feel through your window. It's me. I am out in the sky right now. I'm the blanket you wrap yourself in at night, the pillow your lay your sweet head upon, and I'm loving you, loving you, loving you, loving you, loving you..._

 _So much for writing sensible love letters, let's save our sensible selves for the day. But the night, Gilbert... the night will always belong to us!_

 _ **…**_

 _ **Harvey House, Redmond**_

 _ **February 17th**_

 _...then I look out my window to see you climbing up that old beech tree. You've got your dress tucked into your belt the way you did last summer when you scaled the cliffs of White Sands. Just like that summer, your legs are bare. And I reach out and scoop you up into my arms and carry you to the rug by the fire._

 _You have grazes on your skin and I gently kiss each one. By your ankle, by your knee. Then you slowly pull up the leg of your undergarments and ask me to kiss your thigh. It's as smooth as your cheek only softer still, and so round and full I feel like I'm diving into a bowlful of cream. You taste so sweet and cool. My mouth's so hot it's like you're melting into me. I feel your hands in my hair and you tug at my curls, urging me further and further..._

 _ **...**_

 _ **Windy Willows**_

 _ **Spook's Lane, S'side**_

 _ **March 21st  
**_

 _...it was so real, Gil. In the inky light before the sun passes the crest of the Storm King and Dusty Miller returns from his dissolute wanderings, I could see you lying next to me. The shape of your profile, your sweet lipped mouth, your eyelashes curled up, your hair all tousled. Your chest was rising and falling time with my own so that when I drew a finger down my breast I could feel your breath, when I ran my finger over my ribs I could feel your ribs. My belly, your belly, my hips, your hips, my hands, your hands. Yes, your hands were upon me. Yes, you drew the softest spirals all over my limbs. Yes, your fingers were my own and we loved each other, Gilbert, until I was in such ecstasies I had to hide my moans in my pillow..._

 _ **…**_

 _ **Harvey House**_

 _ **Redmond, K'port**_

 _ **April 12th**_

 _...I mean it, Anne. If you're not here for Sam Blake's christening the next time you see me it will be no dream. I will march over to Summerside High School, throw you over my shoulder and carry you back to Kingsport myself!_

 _..._

 ***first five sentences taken from ch 24, Anne of Windy Willows**

 ***alpine flowers first mentioned in ch 10, Redmond Diaries -the fourth year**

 ***convocation dream inspired by ch 6, Redmond Diaries -the fourth year**

 **Ok, so chests are a-heaving and boundaries have been swept away as we head to 'that one weekend in May.' Thank you so much for your insightful and enthusiastic comments, I'm so happy to put a smile on your face. When I write I write for you :o)**


	9. May and June

**_Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spooks Lane_**

 ** _S'side_**

 ** _May 2nd_**

 _...it's bad enough that you are missing two days at Redmond, but I thought we had decided to be horribly sensible about expenses? Our House of Dreams won't buy itself. And purchasing a return ticket to Caribou just to meet my ferry is the very definition of an Unlawful Extravagance! A son of Avonlea should know better, Gilbert Blythe. I feel I ought to tell you not to. But the only words my pen wants to write are~_

 _YES! YES! YES! I would be thrilled if you should meet me at the Harbour on Thursday. Thrilled, elated, overjoyed, bursting ~always and ever bursting~ with happiness!_

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond, K'port_**

 _ **May 6th**  
_

 _...I've done more than that, Anne-girl, I've reserved us a first class car for the return to Kingsport. You know what that means?_

 _YOU AND I AND NO ONE ELSE FOR EIGHT WHOLE HOURS._

 _For the first time I wish the journey would take twice as long. And not for the first time I am imagining your face, lips pursed in a tight little knot, looking very much like Marilla when she discovers Davy paid a halfpenny more for his peppermints because he bought them at Blairs not Lawsons._

 _Well, I plan to kiss that mouth until you are quite undone. Besides, sweetheart, once we arrive in Kingsport we'll scarcely have a moment alone together. You are to go to Mount Holly on Friday with the Blakes. I won't see you again until the party on Saturday and you're leaving on Sunday morning. So go easy on a fellow and let him splurge a few dollars on his girl if he wants to. Those eight hours with you may be most we have together for a good long while..._

 **…**

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane_**

 ** _S'side_**

 ** _May 10th_**

 _...and so thrilling to know you will be standing at the end of the gangway waiting for me. I shall do as you ask and go bare headed. I would think twice about such a request in this upstanding old town, but I feel certain the good people of Caribou will survive the scandal. I adore the thought of your eyes on me as I make my way to you. The sense of anticipation, it lives within me, and only grows with each new day._

 _Everything anticipates you, Gil. The filmy gloves that lay in my drawer waiting for you to slip them from my hands. The lily of the valley scent sitting innocently on my dresser that intends to draw you closer to my neck. Even the kid skin boots I shall wear to the Gordon's party are lined up in sweet expectation. Though what I really look forward to is kicking them off and tucking my stockinged feet under my skirts, so that I might nestle even closer to you._

 _What anticipates you most of all is a certain green and ivory dress. For too long it has been sitting in my closet, unloved and untouched. I hear it beat like a Tell-Tale Heart, but instead of baleful warnings it calls for YOU ~and those wondrous hands of yours. Mmmmm... I experienced the most delicious shiver just now as a dream and a promise entwined with each other. I see myself standing before you in our carriage. My arms are above my head and then ever so slowly you peel the ivory shift from me and place your lips where chiffon had been._

 _I hope they have first-class locks on those first class carriage doors. But honestly, Gil, I would have been content to crouch with you in the back of the caboose. What does it matter where we are so long as we're together? Just think another Summer lays at our feet! Another Summer to wander over the Island with you. To love you. To know you. I can't help but wonder if there is anywhere else you are intent on showing me?_

 _I have an idea ~but please say if you'd rather not~ that it would be... that is, I would like very much if we could... well, I would like to... read my letters to you. And I want very much for you to read your letters to me._

 _What do you think, Gilbert? I have this secret (no more!) wish that the two of us could each take our beloved epistles to the White Sands cavern ~perhaps not even as far as that, perhaps to the apple tree~ and read them aloud to each other? I long to hear you speak the words you've written. I dream about it. I know there is already so much to look forward to. Marilla and Rachel, the twins and the Wrights. Not to mention Small Anne-Cordelia's chubby pink toes to adorn with kisses and dancing ring o' rosies with little Fred. And the White Way of Delight and the Lake of Shining Waters and as many verdant glooms and winding mossy ways as the Moon-Queen herself could wish for. But I cannot think of Summer without thinking of you._

 _I see us sitting round a friendly fire in our secret cave and you hand me my bundle of letters with a sheepish grin. And then I take your own from a knapsack I have filled with the bounty of Green Gables kitchen ~and two exceedingly competitive cooks. I pass my letters over and we bask in the firelight on your McLeod tartan rug and read our words to each other... Doesn't that sound a blissful way to spend an afternoon? If I could just conjure a little rain for the occasion or one of those trembling Summer storms, I believe it would be perfect._

 _But only if you think so, too. It wouldn't be half as unsatisfying to have just the one of us reading. The magic only happens if we are TOGETHER. Look at all the words that it encompasses~_

 _hotter_

 _tether_

 _throe_

 _thereto_

 _thee_

 _troth_

 _Thereto I pledge  thee my troth. But that's magic right there, the very promise of a marriage vow is written in the word together! _

_Considering the long journey ahead I might plan out some more word games to keep ourselves occupied. Otherwise, Gil, I don't know what I might do..._

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond, K'port_**

 ** _May 14th_**

 _...you forgot_

 _egret_

 _otter_

 _teeth_

 _torte_

 _three_

 _ergo_

 _gore_

 _and hoe_

 _So let's agree that we've done with word games, because I'm not wasting a moment of those hours with a pen in my hand when I can have you._

 ** _..._**

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane_**

 ** _S'side_**

 ** _May 17th_**

 _...what am I going to do with you, Gilbert Blythe?_

 _(I'll leave you to discover that on our train journey next week!)_

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond, K'port_**

 ** _June 7th_**

 _Dear Anne,_

 _It's been over a week since I sent my last letter, it's not possible you haven't received it by now. I am beginning to think that you wish I hadn't done what I've done. Worst of all that you're angry with me. We never really talked about it, I hoped my letter would help you understand. But if you don't reply I might as well howl to the wind._

 _I appreciate how busy you'll be setting exams, I'm under a welter of them myself. And while I don't wish to press you to write if you can't, I'm finding it mighty hard to concentrate with both eyes watching for the post._

 _You must know by now that you can tell me anything, I'll willingly bear it. But I have never been able to bear you avoiding me._

 _I love you,  
_

 _Gilbert_

 ** _..._**

 ** _Windy Willows_**

 ** _Spook's Lane_**

 ** _June 13th_**

 _Dear Gilbert,_

 _Please forgive this lax correspondent. I am ashamed to know you have been waiting so anxiously, especially as I have only the most unromantic and unoriginal excuse of being down with a nasty cold. A cold in the head is an immoral thing in mid June! I want to be under the soft green sky behind the hemlocks, I want to gaze at the silver-white moon hanging over the Storm King, I want to take in the haunting perfume of the lilacs under my window, or the frosty pencil stemmed irises on my table. They arrived for me this morning, Gil, and are a joy to behold. And I certainly mean to behold them just as soon as this cold relinquishes its hold on poor, congested me._

 _Firstly, to put you at ease, I understand completely. Everything is how it should be. I have been playing too long in dreams instead of realising that we are both grown-ups. It was bound to happen. It embarrasses me to admit that I'd never thought of it before. Anne Shirley! Who can conjure fairies from fireplaces and you from the stars! But there it is, it is done, and you are the rock upon which I shall make our home. There is nothing to regret, Gilbert, nothing at all._

 _I do regret putting my oar in with Hazel. She has just now poured scorn upon my already heavy head. Storming into my room and declaring she is now madly in love with Terry Garland, when last month she admitted she longed to be free of him. For the briefest moment I wanted to slap her adorable rose-tinted cheek. Thankfully my sense of humour prevailed. Or rather my sense of Marilla._

 _There was Hazel wailing about in the depths of despair, informing me that~_

 _'I didn't know what suffering was, and it is terrible, terrible!'_

 _My reply might have come straight from, How to Bring Up Imaginative Orphans by Miss M. Cuthbert. I said to Hazel, cool as you like~_

 _'Then don't suffer.'_

 _I intend to apply this advice to myself as well. I won't waste a moment picking my motives to pieces or try to justify my meddling. All I wanted was extricate two young people from a promise that neither of them wanted. I also know I liked the idea of casting myself as a champion who would save them both from their folly. But the folly has been mine, and I hereby promise to keep my poor red nose out of other people's love affairs forever more._

 _Suddenly I feel wiser and a thousand years older and I still have eighteen geography essays to grade. And you should be memorising the function, structure and distribution of cranial nerves not dallying in the letters of a sneezing head mistress._

 _So I shall say good night to you, or good day ~or even good luck if you should ever feel in need of extra.  
_

 _Yours always,_

 _Miss A. Shirley  
_

 **…**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond, K'port_**

 ** _June 17th_**

 _Dearest Miss Shirley,  
_

 _The letter you sent me might fool some people but it doesn't fool me. I know you, Anne. And I want all of you. Not just the parts that suit my own self._

 _I am leaving Kingsport in a little over a week, and I don't want to go with a heavy heart. I am sorry if this should cause you to think me more selfish than I already am. But I don't care about the irises, nor Hazel Marr, nor am I especially bothered by the ten common symptoms of syphilllus on the nervous system.  
_

 _I'm asking you and I'll keep asking you, into the summer and all through autumn if I must, that you remain true to the girl that I love. Please write me the sort of letter I know is inside you, and soon._

 _Gil_

 _P.S. Forget Paget's Cure All Tonic, you might as well drink cordial. You want a camomile compress for your abdomen and a eucalyptus steambath for your head -Doctor's orders._

 ** _..._**

 ** _*Caribou is a port on mainland Canada that is closest to PEI_**

 ** _*the Gordons are Phil Blake's parents, Mount Holly is their Bolingbroke residence_**

 ** _* Tell-Tale Heart is from Edgar Allen Poe_**

 ** _*Moon-Queen reference from To a Nightingale by Keats_**

 ** _*MacLeod tartan rug first mentioned in ch 10, Redmond Diaries -the fourth year_**

 ** _*Anne's June 13th letter liberally sprinkled with passages from ch 28, Anne of Windy Willows_**

 **Thanks again for your beautiful comments! I suspect this is not the weekend in May you were hoping for. You will discover exactly what happened in the next chapter, which I think will mark the end of this story.**


	10. You and I

_**With love and gratitude to L.M.M. ~ everything is hers, only this idea is mine.**_

 _ **...**_

 _ **Windy Willows**_

 _ **Spook's Lane, S'side**_

 _ **June 21st**_

 _Dear Gilbert,_

 _How can I tell you what lies in my heart when I scarcely know it myself?_

 _Little Elizabeth is Lizzie again as she awaits permission to come to Green Gables. Katherine's resignation lies on my desk, as does what is certain to be another rejection letter. Dusty Miller left a dead bird on my pillow. And the irises have died. They droop in their vase with heads dessicated and stems all yellowed and grey. The only thing worse than looking at them will be flinging them onto the fire._

 _I'm not feeling sorry for myself, if anything I'm angry, and it's a terrible, tangled up anger with no beginning and no end. From the moment I closed the door on you I have been trying to unravel it, so that I might roll it into a nice neat ball. Write nice neat letters. Have nice neat feelings. But they insist upon being as messy and ugly as the flowers you sent me two weeks ago. I know in a dark little place in my heart I am punishing those flowers because I want to punish you._

 _WHY didn't you tell me sooner? Yes, I read your previous letter. Yes, it was thoughtful of you to not want to spoil our time together by telling me your plans. Yes, had I known I would have pulled away from you as I have many times before. Yes, you are reasonable, selfless and good. And I am ridiculous and selfish ~with an extra helping of selfish. In my head I know you are right, but my heart... In my heart lurks an anger as nasty and fetid as the water in that vase. I want to stamp my foot like a child and demand not to be treated as one._

 _I won't have you think you must always protect me. I won't._

 _ **…**_

 _The flowers have gone. I have informed the Board of Katherine's resignation, and another rejection letter has been filed away. It's unfair to rebuke you for keeping things from me when I kept something from you, too._

 _Remember the story I was working on last summer ~a summer that seems a lifetime ago~ about Iona of Harris Island? It's been rejected fourteen ~scratch that, fifteen times. No one will touch it. It's no more improper than Bronte, yet those who have bothered to read it have deemed it 'obscene', 'lascivious' and 'unfit for a female to read let alone write.' My publishers at Syracuse have been a little more encouraging. They like the premise but want me to change the age of Iona from eighteen to eleven. In other words they want me to continue writing children's books. They want another 'Bright Bell and Other Tales', or better yet a series which will keep them on the shop shelves and Miss A. Shirley in royalty cheques until the day that I expire._

 _I should do as they ask me and be grateful to have such an option. I should write gay and humorous fairy stories, if not for their own sake for the sake of our House of Dreams. I should wave you off to Ontario and be glad of the money you'll earn. I should have told you to refund your first class tickets. I should have shaken you awake as you slept our precious hours away._

 _You were so bone tired you could barely keep your eyes open. Sixty hour weeks. Working through the night in order to submit your Surgery paper before you left. Taking an extra shift at Imperial because you would miss one on Saturday morning. Eight hours to Caribou in a third class carriage crammed next to a man with his rooster in a crate. When I saw you by the gangway I assumed you had taken yet another hit, your eyes were so bruised with exhaustion. The lull of the train on the tracks and the lure of my lap was too great a thing to resist. It wasn't long before you nestled your head against my thighs and I wove my fingers through your curls. I promised myself that the next time I watched you sleep I would be lying next to you._

 _When I saw you again at Samuel's christening you looked so bursting with life. I thought to myself how did it happen that this beautiful man is walking up the aisle toward me? All I wanted was to walk back down it with you. Of course, it was delicious to spend time with Phil and meet her beloved Sam-baby. But ceremonies in dark churches and soirées at Mount Holly were not what I truly looked forward to.  
_

 _We drifted away from the party and began strolling the streets of Bolingbroke. You were worried we would get lost until a thick smell of lilac filled the afternoon air and I knew we were close to my home. I took you to that shabby cottage, we sat on the curb under the aspen tree and I realised I was bringing you to meet my folks. I could see my father smoothing down his red hair, shyly, and shaking your hand. See my mother welcoming you inside whilst giving me a look that said, 'Isn't he a dish!'_

 _I told you all I knew of their lives, and remember your surprise when you discovered how young they were.  
_

 _'When I was that age I was teaching at White Sands,' you said, half to me and half to yourself. 'Can you imagine us marrying so young?'_

 _'I can imagine us marrying right now,' I replied._

 _You stood up quickly, dusted yourself down and asked if I would like to go to the cemetery. I told you no, that here is where I felt closest to Walter and Bertha Shirley. By this little yellow house with lilacs round the door and muslin curtains at the windows._

 _I was thinking of that tumble down cottage. I was thinking of Ambleside. I was thinking of our House of Dreams. Of lying with you, laying with you, loving you and waking with you. I was making up my mind to bring you to Patterson Street.  
_

 _On we walked, stopping at that tavern for supper and wine, and the words became fewer and the looks became longer. You flagged down a cab and we sat in silence. Except when you arm brushed my hip, except when I leaned my head on your shoulder. Those gestures spoke volumes, though I could scarcely hear them over the beating inside my blue dress._

 _We arrived at the Blakes and I found the key just where Phil said I would. If it wasn't there it meant some poor soul was already inside, making themselves at home. I pushed open the heavy door and found the house empty. Aside from Jo's stray dogs, of course, who ran at us so excitedly one would think they hadn't been fed for days. You lay a fire for me, I made the tea for you. Then the tea went cold and the fire went out. I was pressed against the parlour wall and a photograph of Jimsie was knocked from its hook. You caught it in one hand and said,_

 _'We don't want to break the house, shall we find some place to sit?'_

 _You steered me to the sofa and I tumbled onto it. I spied one of the Miss Ada's cushions and recalled the night Charlie proposed; when you came to St John's without your coat and we ate tea and toast on the cabbage rose carpet. Now you were standing before me shedding your jacket and loosening your tie, and I said,_

 _'Remember the night the cushion beads stuck in your hair?'_

 _'The night I filched your scarf,' you answered, kneeling at my feet._

 _'You asked me who belonged in my life.'_

 _'I was hoping you would tell me that I did.'_

 _'I know.'_

 _'You knew?'_

 _'Yes...'_

 _'Say it, Anne.'_

 _'Say what?'_

 _'Tell me I belong in your life.'_

 _I knelt down next to you and smoothed your hair as I had that night long ago._

 _I said, 'You do, Gil. It's always been you,' and such a groan came from your throat. Your eyes were as dark as the sky outside, and you murmured,_

 _'Anne, this is dangerous-'_

 _'This isn't real, it's a memory, a dream... We're not really here, Gil, we're imagining we are.'_

 _My hands were touching your face and you took the tip of my finger in your mouth and bit it._

 _'What was that for?'  
_

 _'To see if you wake up.'_

 _'You belong in my life', I whispered to you. 'You belong in my heart, you belong in...'_

 _I never finished that sentence because your hand went to my jaw and you pulled me to you so roughly I forgot how to breathe. We fell back onto the floor and I remember thinking, I'm drowning, Sweet World, I am drowning and I don't care... I don't care... I don't care..._

 _Your tie was gone, your suspenders pulled from your shoulders. I felt your open mouth on my neck and your body move against me as you did on New Years Eve. I lifted my hips to meet your own and you inhaled so sharply it was almost a hiss; pulling away as though I was a Siren bent on luring you into the sea.  
_

 _'I have to tell you something,' you muttered._

 _That cold sea stung in my veins. I sat myself up and tucked in my hair where it had come loose, while you busied yourself with the fire. You crouched low with your back to me and told me you'd been accepted to work in a GTR field hospital, in somewhere Ontario._

 _Moments before I dwelt in a world made entirely of you. And you were over me and under me and through me and until you blotted out all thought. Now I was filled with questions. Where in Ontario? Not the St Clair rail tunnel? With its constant risk of cave ins and suffocation. Why would you go there? Were you giving up Redmond? Were you running away from us?  
_

 _'It's just for the summer,' you said. 'I can make as much money in two months as a farm hand makes in two seasons.'_

 _'Why are you telling me this now?'_

 _'I reasoned there was no need to mention it till I knew the job was mine.'_

 _'You could have told me on the train... or during the party... or at dinner. Why now? When we're here and we're alone and I wanted you... to stay with me.'_

 _'I know.'_

 _'You knew?'_

 _'Yes...'_

 _'Why didn't you say something?'_

 _'I am saying something.'_

 _You went to my side and felt for my hand which lay in my rumpled skirts._

 _'How many pearls on that ring?' you asked.  
_

 _'Fifteen.'_

 _'What year are we now?'_

 _'Unlucky thirteen. Unlucky thirteen and three quarters.'_

 _'Anne Shirley,' you said, 'I never took you for the superstitious type.'_

 _I was smiling in spite of myself, and you began to straighten your collar and feel about for your hat. You asked if I wanted you to come to the station on Sunday and I told you no, it was due to leave at five in the morning. The cab had been booked, my case already packed. All I had to do was leave food for the dogs and chickens, and the key behind the lantern on the porch._

 _'Let's not say goodbye,' I said, as I walked you to the door._

 _'Can we kiss goodbye?' you asked._

 _I pointed to all the places that I wanted to be kissed, and when I finally gestured to my lips you made the softest sound. It passed from your mouth into mine, your body stiffened, your hand gripped me hard on my shoulder and I pleaded with you, softly~_

 _'Stay.'_

 _If you heard me you never showed it. You kissed my head and told me you loved me and walked out into the night. And I climbed the stairs to find a one earred terrier on my bed when I wanted to find you._

 ** _..._**

 ** _Harvey House_**

 ** _Redmond, K'port_**

 ** _June 25th_**

 _Anne,_

 _I didn't walk into the night. Not at first._ _I stood on Patterson Street and I looked up at the stars and I asked them to give me one reason why I shouldn't kick the Blake's door down and go to you. When they didn't answer I ran. I think I stopped running after five miles and walked for another five hours. I needed to be far from you because I wanted to be so close. Without knowing why I ended up at your yellow cottage just as the sun broke the night.  
_

 _A cat limped by and a baby wailed. I thought of Reb's daughter and The Fox's son. I thought about Walter, and what it must have been like when nineteen year old Bertha told him she was with child. I felt this surge of fear and excitement, as if it was me who was hearing those words. Then that wail pierced the air again and I pictured my darling girl lying in a basket, with her father in a grave and her mother dead beside her._

 _You don't know how I wish I had the means to provide for you and give you the home that you dream of. You could be living on Spofford Avenue with someone like Gardner. Instead you save your pennies and count the years because you chose me. Knowing this is a glorious, fearsome burden, and there are days when it brings me to my knees. I'm afraid I will fail you. I know I would never forgive myself if I put you in harm's way. That's what I'd be doing if I stayed with you, Anne. Call it protection if you must but it's the only way I know how to love.  
_

 _If you love me then please write back. I'll be staying at the Three Weeds Hotel on Keep Street, Sarnia, Ontario. Working all the hours God gives and dreaming of you each night. I need you. Don't give up on your writing. Don't ever give up on me.  
_

 _Gilbert_

 ** _THE END_**

 ** _..._**

 ** _* the week we became engaged is a reference to ch 9, The Windy Willows Love Letters  
_**

 ** _* Iona of Harris Island first mentioned in ch 6 ,The Windy Willows Love Letters (that was a bit meta, really)_**

 ** _* Bright Bell story first mentioned in ch 5, Redmond Diaries -the fourth year_**

 ** _* the yellow cottage first mentioned in ch 1, Redmond Diaries -the third year_**

 ** _* the tumble down cottage first mentioned in ch 9, The Windy Willows Love Letters_**

 ** _* Gilbert getting his hair tangled in cushion beads first mentioned in ch 9, Redmond Diaries -the first year_**

 ** _* New Years Eve is a reference to a one shot, Little Fires_**

 ** _* GTR is the Grand Trunk Railway_**

 ** _* fifteen pearls first mentioned in ch 1, The Windy Willows Love Letters_**

 ** _I'm not sure if this is the best place to end this story but it felt right to me. I hope that 'one weekend in May' lived up to your expectations and that this story did justice to Anne and to Gilbert. Thank you for all your reviews. It's always special when I break 100, and it always give me a thrill when I've been favourited or followed.  
_**

 ** _The Last of the Windy Willows Love Letters will follow this story._**

 ** _When that is done I think I will have probably written everything there is to write about 19th century Anne and Gilbert. I will have covered more than seven years in as much detail as I can manage, I doubt there is anything I could add. But please let me know if there is something I have missed._**

 ** _Later, Katherine-with-a-k  
_**


End file.
